Training Continues

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

TRAINING CONTINUES

Acts 7:23-29

23 "When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. 24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. 25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. 26 The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?' 27 "But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, 'Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'   29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.

NIV

Although Moses was raised as an Egyptian, he had to know that he was an Israelite. Did the daughter of Pharaoh tell him how she found him, or one of her servant girls? It would appear from researchers the ancient Egyptians were a darker-skinned race, while ancient Israelites were of a lighter skin coloring. From facial reconstructions, there seems to have been differences in facial figures as well. There could be no mistaking that Moses was an Israelite, and he knew his people were being used to build the cities. However, until he was forty years of age, from what we are told, he never went to visit his own people. That is interesting that he spent many years among the Egyptians living like them without ever going to see his fellow Israelites. Why now? Was there something about being forty that brought on this desire to see them? We would think it was the influence of God upon Moses, for God had a call on his life from the beginning although all we are told is that Moses was no ordinary child when he was born. God had his hand upon him from birth and protected him from the decree of the Pharoah. Could Moses have become distracted by all the cares of the world? Could he have been seduced by all the wealth and success of his position among the Egyptians, that he turned a blind eye to his own people’s plot in life? Once again, we see something that seems familiar, the number forty. How many times has God used forty? There are ninety-four times either forty days or forty years appear in the scripture all with reference to something God oversaw to happen. This could not just be a coincidence that it was when Moses was forty that he felt the need to visit his own people. This was a move of God within him and for the first time, Moses saw the pain of his people and was moved to action. However, we have to believe his actions were motivated by God so Moses would have to move on to the next phase of his training to be the liberator of God’s people from their bondage. Moses received all the training he needed in Egypt to be a leader of people, but he still lacked the spiritual training necessary to be a true leader of the people of God. We will see, as Moses escapes to Midian he spends another forty years. What is interesting though is that although he was among the Egyptians for forty years, living among them, being schooled in all their wisdom why did he feel that his life was in danger because he killed a man mistreating an Israelite? Could he not have presented a case simply on caring for another person, that the guard was wrong in his treatment methods? But it was God who put that fear in him so he would move on and leave, going to the next years of his training for God’s purpose. This should give us the idea that we too should always be ready for the next phase of our journey with the Lord. We must remember life is a journey, it is not a campout. We might be in the right place at the right time for the moment, both in our physical and spiritual walk, but it is still a journey, so we always need to be aware of God’s righteous right hand upon us and be willing to move on to the next level of our training so that we will always be able to be of service to Him as He needs or desires to use us. It might not be forty years for the next move, but it could be forty days, forty months, or forty hours or whatever time God sees fit to bring us along in our training to be the person of God he desires us to be. We can be sure of one thing; our training will continue.