Each week we’ve had a theme:

• Who God is and who we are.
• How God works through our brokenness.
• Who am I worshipping- God or myself?

This week we are starting into the book of Ephesians to see what makes us distinctively “His” people. It’s a beautiful 6 chapters explaining who we are as His children and what that looks like as we live daily.

Read Ephesians 1:1-10

• KNOW (what does the text say about God?)
• BE (What does the text say about us?)
• DO (what is the text calling me to do?)

Take time today to think through those questions from this passage.

As we anticipate being together for worship, spend some time preparing your heart to sit with your spiritual family.

Reflect back on the week’s devotions and bring before the Lord anything that you feel has usurped His rightful place in your heart.

Ask Him to speak as you are listening.

We read Isaiah 44:14-20 yesterday, but let’s read it again today to do some more reflecting.

One of the themes of this week has been “who or what do I worship?” And Isaiah 44 is a picture of the subtle sway of our idols. Read vs. 14-15: is there any practical thing in my life that is useful (like the wood from the trees in the passage), but it is a temptation to make it into an idol?

Read vs. 16-17. Is there anything or anyone that I turn to first when facing a crisis (save me! You are my god!), before coming to the Lord?

Read v. 18. Do I ever feel like your “eyes are plastered over” so I cannot see God working in your life?

v. 19 says “No one stops to think.” When am I most likely to be thoughtless, letting the urgent worries of life dictate my schedule rather than intentionally walking with God?

In the year 2022, it’s hard not to read the last line of v. 20 as referring to our phones and electronic devices. “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

After reflecting on these questions, consider reading the passage again slowly. Ask the Lord to reveal where the subtle allure of idols might be tempting me.

Tools can become idols when they captivate our minds and hearts. Lord, protect your people from idolatry, and where we discover it and name it, in the name of Jesus Christ, give us the strength to repent and return to you, our Lord. Amen.

…the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the Lord had said. ~Exodus 8:19

The plagues continue, and God instructs Moses and Aaron to strike the dust of the ground with the staff, which produces swarming gnats all over the people and animals. When Pharaoh’s magicians are unable to duplicate this sign, they identify a power greater than theirs: “This is the finger of God.”

These are practitioners of the magical arts—surely the best in all of Egypt, but they are unable to conjure such power—that power, they suspect, is only available to God himself. These Magicians are certainly not followers of the Lord, but are attuned to the spiritual realm and have seen something…beyond.

But Pharaoh is not paying attention to the Lord. What he said back in Exodus 5:2 is as true as it was then: “I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.” He does not know the Lord, so who is his lord?

Even if we don’t particularly identify with the magician or the Pharaoh, the reality is that we all give inappropriate allegiance to idols and authorities in our lives. Read Isaiah 44:14-20 slowly.

• Is the Spirit bringing a word or phrase to your attention?
• Do you identify with the temptation to justify idolatry? What will it look like to repent of such idolatry today?

The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water… And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river. ~Exodus 7:21, 24

It is difficult (and undesirable) to imagine the sensory experience of the plague of blood, but it is clearly an escalation of the awful consequences of Pharaoh’s outright refusal to let Israel go into the wilderness to worship the Lord.

I imagine the predicament of an Egyptian citizen, not a follower of the Lord, but not rebellious like Pharaoh, having to scramble to find a way to access water for myself and my family. Digging along the Nile feels like a futile effort, but when we live to see such times, we have to do something!

Many years from now, the Lord will look upon Israel and see them living just like these Egyptians, and the prophet Jeremiah will proclaim his word: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

In both these scenarios, the only solution is a turning to the Lord. The average Egyptian may not know this, but the people of Israel ought to know better, and followers of Jesus should know even better. Jesus is the living water.

• Where are you scrambling to do everything on your own rather than receiving God’s gift of living water?

Pray for God to refresh you today.

Then say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened. ~Exodus 7:16

“…so that they may worship me in the wilderness.” This is not the first time, and won’t be the last, where Moses and Aaron appeal to Pharaoh to let Israel go into the wilderness to worship the Lord (3:18; 5:1; 5:3; 8:1; 8:20, etc.)

It is good to be reminded that “the church is not a building” and that “God does not live in buildings made by human hands.” The corrective reminder that God and his work cannot be contained is instructive for us, but God also calls his people into particular places and actions where he promises to be present, perhaps in a special or singular way.

Psalm 122 is a beautiful reflection on the refuge that is “the house of the Lord,” and the New Testament is filled with promises that Christ will be present: where two or more are gathered, in the breaking of bread and drinking of the cup, in the poor among us, among the “little ones,” among others.

Perhaps the Spirit is calling you to enter into one of these spaces with greater intentionality:

Are you feeling called to spend more time in intentional fellowship with the church, perhaps in a home group? To receive communion with a greater sense of wonder? To acknowledge that time spent with the poor, hungry, and outcast is time spent with the risen Lord?

14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. ~Exodus 7:14-15

From the beginning of the Exodus story, it’s been clear that Moses alone does not have the power to soften Pharaoh’s mind and heart. There have been moments where Moses has been accused of turning Pharaoh more aggressively against Israel (Exodus 5:21), but persuading Pharaoh to let Israel go does not seem to be in the cards for Moses.

Yet despite our inability to get through to people, we know that God can radically transform the human heart. And we have seen that Pharaoh’s is a particularly hard heart.

But Moses isn’t called to soften Pharaoh’s heart. Moses is called to obey. In this moment, obedience looks like showing up to a particular place (the bank of the Nile), taking up a particular posture (confront Pharaoh), and bringing with him his staff (which the Lord had previously turned into a snake).

Moses alone cannot soften Pharaoh’s heart, but he can show up and obey. Moses alone cannot perform miracles with his staff, but he can come prepared and obey.

• Are you attempting to control anyone, and need to let go?
• Where do you need to show up prepared to obey today?
• What resources do you need to be prepared today?