When Moses asked this, Pharaoh not only didn’t let them go but he made them work harder. Which made all the Israelites despise Moses, saying “let the LORD look on you and judge, because you have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh…”

Eventually God kept showing the Egyptians that He was the LORD, with plagues, signs and wonders. After a lot of heartache, disease and even loose of the first born of every creature. Pharaoh let God’s people go.

When the Israelites were free but in the desert, they said to Moses, “let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians, for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.”

Forty years later, they were in the promised land.

God taught me so much through this:

First, the Israelites said to Moses “Let the LORD look on you and judge” in ignorance, not knowing that God Himself is who called Moses to do what He was doing. First off, I think it’s right of them to give judgement to God. The Bible says judging is for God and God alone. But it was wrong of them to assume, imply or suggest what Judgement the LORD should apply.

Basically, let God and God alone be the judge of you, and me also. But I should never assume that His judgement would be what mine would be.

Because the whole time, they thought Moses was out of line, but actually was walking right on it, by grace.

How many times do we think, “I can’t wait for God to judge them” but really it’s us that needs to be judged and they are actually doing the will of the Father?

On the other side of that coin, Moses prayed after hearing that saying “LORD, why have You brought trouble on this people? Why is it You have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people; neither have You delivered Your people at all.”

and God said “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD I was not known to them.”

Moses felt hated and un-accepted by his own people. Moses was, in a sense saying “God why are you making them hate me?”. He basically was saying “you didn’t do what you said you would, you didn’t deliver your people like you said, and now they think I am nuts and also I made their life worse”.

There is many times God will tell us to talk to someone, love someone or share the gospel with them* and we pray “God they didn’t change, they didn’t accept the message, they didn’t want to hear it, now they don’t like me and they stopped following me on Twitter”. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we do what God wanted us to do, whether or not the outcome is what we expected.

What God said to Moses basically said “I’m the LORD, they need to go through this so they know me as the LORD, because they do not”. If Pharaoh said “ok, I’ll let them go” the first time and also didn’t chase after them later, God wouldn’t have gotten the glory as He did. God wanted to show them He is in control of the weather, the sea, nature and even the life of first born children.

And in the desert the Israelites, just like us, found a way to complain, even in their freedom. They said “It would be better for us to serve the Egyptians…” how many times, do we say “it would have been better for us to just give into sin, serve ourselves than to serve God our LORD?”. We don’t say it verbally, well maybe not all of us, but we say it with our lives. We forget about the promised land and think about the current time, the desert, the hard part and we want to give up and go back to our slavery to sin.

In the new House of Heroes album, Suburba, it’s not out yet, there is a song called “So Far Away”. In the chorus it says “what if I told you it was so far away, if I told you would you go with me anyway?” I am not sure the writer’s intention or meaning of the song, but I love thinking of Jesus saying this to us. What if I told you righteousness is far away? Would you still follow me? What if I told you that the path is hard and narrow? Are you still in? What if I told you that the promised land is forty years later? I am very aware that you are far from righteous, but I am in, are you?

Basically, I hear Jesus saying, I know what I am getting myself into when I offer you righteousness, I know it’s going to take work and teaching, do you know what you are getting into?

I love this picture because it flips around what we are taught the gospel is. We think, if we keep trying we will be saved, if we stay committed to Jesus we will be saved. But as one guy I met asked me, “would you want to get to heaven and base your salvation on your commitment to God or God’s commitment to you?”.

When I think of Jesus saying “If I told you it’s going to be hard, are you still in?” I think of Him saying “I know you, I know you are a screw up and a sinner, I know you are going to keep going back to that sin, I am already committed to seeing this through to the end”.

I sometimes believe the lie that I committed a sin that Jesus wasn’t prepared for, or that He looked at me and said, “I didn’t think you would do that…I’m not sure if I can save you”.

The great thing about Jesus’ resurrection is that His heart is still beating, so the blood that makes us righteous isn’t going to run out. It continually will make us righteous. If He didn’t rise again, his blood would have ran out thousands of years ago.

your friend,

-Isaac

*I think the gospel should be preached by people that know the gospel, the true gospel. So the spirit guides them and shows them God’s timing.

I have a close friend that believes God condemns us for eternity for metaphorically running one stop light, he says, “God is unjust for doing that”. I don’t think that is the case. We are not righteous people who sin here and there or once in our life. We are sinners. The point of the Bible isn’t to tell us all the things we aren’t supposed to do and what we are to do. It’s to tell us what we can’t do, it’s to show us our nature and ultimately our need.

You might think you are a good swimmer, but when some book comes along and says to be a good swimmer you have to swim 5 miles in one minute and you tried, you would realize then you aren’t a good swimmer and not even close to a perfect swimmer. The Bible tells us what righteousness looks like, it says “don’t look at a women lustfully” or “don’t hate” try that for just a year and you’ll realize you aren’t that good of a person.

Jesus says “that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment” and “that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart”.

That didn’t make sense to me, I thought he was trying to say “don’t lust and don’t hate”. The problem these days is people start seeing the Bible as a list, instead of a mirror. A list tells you what you need to do and don’t do, a mirror shows you your flaws and what you look like. The Bible does that to our heart, shows us that we aren’t good people, but sinners.

Jesus says “unless you surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of God”. The Pharisees were the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, think pastors, priests, Bible teachers, etc. Everyone looked up to the Pharisees to see what “righteousness looked like” because the Pharisees kept the Law, they tithed, prayed, kept everyone and themselves in check with sin, even obeying the Sabbath day. Jesus said we had to be more righteous than the pharisees.

This is the whole point of this blog and the Bible, so please get this:

Jesus wasn’t saying, “the Pharisees are keeping the commands, but you need to try harder if you want to enter the Kingdom of God”, Jesus was saying “you will never be able to obtain righteousness on your own, so give up, come to me, repent and I will make you righteous”.

If you want joy, repent.
That stuff hasn’t been making you happy anyhow.

-Isaac

I was hoping that God would tell me what I need to do and let me do it.

I have been a self-employed man for around 6 years now. Normally a client will hire me for a video/film and tell me what they want, I will make it, send it to them for approval, make a few changes and send them the final. I answer to only deadlines, but until then, they don’t see it or direct it until it’s at a “draft” stage. I guess that is how I expected my Christian walk to be. I wanted God to give me a task like “build an Ark” and I just work on that Ark until I am done. But I think God works differently.

I think God says today, “get some Gopher Wood”, tomorrow He says, “get some tools”, and the next day, “buy a raincoat”.

It requires me to constantly pray, “what next God?”.

Like I said a client normally gives me a task, then I don’t here from them until it’s done. But when I was working under someone as an camera-op/editor I learned a ton from them sitting behind me while editing saying, “do it this way”, “let me show you a trick” or “this is what I want”.

Instead of God just asking me to do a task and letting me do it, He wants me to keep in prayer, seeking His direction.

If a client hires me and doesn’t see anything until the deadline, they have to have a lot of trust in me. But if a client doesn’t tell me what the end result will be, but just says, I will tell you what to edit today, then I have to keep in constant communication with them. Then I would have to trust them.

“Give us this day our daily bread” it talks about daily bread, why not weekly bread? Maybe because we need to trust Him each day.

God doesn’t give me a task and let’s me be, because I will screw it up, I will lose sight.

Basically, I need to trust God, He doesn’t need to trust me.

This past week, I have started praying in general. It’s not a thing I try to do. But a thing I plan to do and make time to do. And it’s been rocking my world. I have gotten more fulfillment and saw God’s love change people’s lives through me more in this past week, then I have the entire year before.

If you want God to really change your life, listen to Him and seek His voice.

If you haven’t prayed in a while it will be hard, possibly awkward, but each day, plan on talking a walk around your neighborhood or workplace or school and just pray.

It would be foolish for Michael Jordan’s son to aspire to be a good basketball and not go to His dad daily for some coaching, guidance and advice. Just like it would be foolish for a Christian, that is aspiring to love and have their lives and hearts renewed but not go to their Father in heaven daily asking for Him to change their hearts and teach them to love.

your friend,

-Isaac

Basically it’s like I am playing in the sand and I dug a hole and filled it with water. I look at it and think, “I can get to know a lot of this body of water and I can dig more to make it bigger, I can build a castle right there, I can look at it for a few years and know every crevice, every in and out.”

Then God tapped me on the shoulder and said “look behind you” and I looked and saw a huge ocean. I got so overwhelmed by the mystery, the power, the untamable and immovable body of water that I just had to give up with my puddle.

I get often lost in theology and I miss God. I start trying to understand everything about God. Getting lost in doctrines and ideas of God, trying to figure out what to believe and what not to believe, to figure out what doctrine is sound and fits God the most.

There are a lot of times, especially on tour, where I get to laugh and talk with a someone for a few hours and after that time has passed and I’ve gotten to a point where I would call them my friend and trust them with a lot of personal or important things in my life. I eventually turn to them and say “by the way, what’s your name?”.

It’s so funny how sometimes when meeting people the first things we ask are, “what’s your name?” “what’s do you do for a living?” “are you a student?” “what’s your major” and all that other stuff before we can hang out with them. But I think some of my best friendships started when I didn’t know any of that stuff first, we just enjoyed each other’s company.

And sometimes with things like Facebook and Twitter, all our information is right there for people to see. They can see your favorite shows, to what interests you, your birthday, where you grew up and so many other things. We have eventually lost the human touch of saying “where are you from?” and getting to hear their story and have some personality behind it, instead of just facts. They can tell you if they liked their hometown, why they moved and if they were a military kid that moved every four years. Since I got a Myspace then a Facebook I don’t remember the last time someone asked me “when is your birthday?”.

I believe God wants us to just come to Him, once we start hanging out with Him and spending time with Him, we will start to get to know Him. I think both are important, don’t get me wrong, but I am saying don’t get caught up in details.

So when I look at the ocean, I think “where do I start?” I can spend my whole life just studying coral, seaweed, jellyfish or sharks, but then I still would only know a small percentage of the subject I chose and still not have even touched the million other things in the ocean to study, from the plankton to the whales.

God isn’t a hole in the sand that I can study, change and figure out. But He is, in comparison, the ocean that should just amazes us and inspire us to just jump in and go swimming and when we swim we will come across some fascinating things in the process.

your friend,

-Isaac