Lessons From the Story of Moses

his article will be an extension off of the article I just did titled "The Story of Moses." As I said in that article, I believe this man has one of the most powerful and dramatic stories in all of the Old Testament. There are major lessons to be learned from this man’s story and adventure in God.

For all aspiring eagles in God, I believe that Moses and King David are two excellent role models for us to learn from. They were both true heroes of the faith and there is much to learn from both of their stories in the Lord. This article will be on what we can learn from the story of Moses and what we can each take with us on our own individual journeys with the Lord.

1. Personal Relationship With God

As I have stated numerous times in many of our other articles, the #1 thing God wants to do with each one of us is to establish an intimate personal relationship. Moses definitely accomplished this with God the Father! The Bible may have given Moses two of the finest and highest compliments that any human could ever hope to receive from God Himself.

Here are the two verses giving Moses these two incredible compliments direct from the Lord Himself:

• "So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend." (Exodus 33:11)
  

• "But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." (Deuteronomy 34:10)

The second verse is one of the last verses that are at the end of this man’s story. It is a very fitting statement and compliment in which to end his story in God. These verses are obviously referring to Moses’ face-to-face encounters with God in the burning bush and on top of Mount Sinai when he received the 10 commandments from God the Father.

However, the thing to really grab a hold of is that even though God initiated making this kind of direct contact with Moses, Moses entered in and was not afraid to meet God face to face and one on one! The Bible says that when God first manifested His presence on top of Mount Sinai, all of the other Israelites were scared to death of God.

They told Moses that he should go up there and talk with God for them lest they should die from coming into direct contact with the Lord. Here are the exact words out of Scripture of the fear that they had with their own God:

Then they said to Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." (Exodus 20:19)

Their fear of God is the exact same fear that many Christians still have today. They know that the Bible tells them that God wants to establish this individual personal relationship with each one of us, but they are to afraid to approach God to establish this kind of intimate personal relationship with Him.

I won’t go into all the different reasons people are afraid to establish a personal relationship with the Lord. But suffice to say, this is what God really wants, and if you would be willing enter in without any fear like Moses did, this will then be the beginning of a new and adventurous life with the Lord.

Just look at the story of Moses and what happened to his mundane life out in the desert once he made direct contact with the Lord and then proceeded to follow God’s call on his life! His whole life changed for the better - and what an incredible adventure he had with God in the last 40 years of his life!

Moses was 80 years old when God first made contact with Him and called him out for the mission that He had in store for him. Everything that Moses experienced in the Lord all occurred in the last 40 years of his life. It is never too late to turn your life over to God the Father and enter into His perfect will for your life. You just never know what God may do with the rest of what time you still have left down here on this earth!

Moses did two powerful things that dramatically changed the course and quality of his life:

1. He entered into and followed God’s personal call on his life.

2. He entered into a dynamic personal relationship with God the Father.

Look at these two things as a 1-2 punch. Totally surrender your life over to God the Father, ask Him to place you in His perfect will for your life, find out what your call and purpose is going to be for Him, and then do not be afraid to enter into a dynamic, powerful, personal relationship with Him. If each Christian would be willing do both of these things, I believe that God would then take them into heights and adventures that could possibly be beyond their wildest dreams.

I’m not saying we are all going to have the same kind of story Moses had, but many of you can definitely testify that all of your lives have been changed for the better and that your lives are very exciting in the Lord. He constantly keeps us guessing and wondering what He is going to do next.

To those of you who have not either done one or both of the above, just imagine and visualize the story of Moses as I described in my last article.

God is no respecter of persons. Look what happened to this man's mundane life out in the desert once he fully surrendered his life over to God’s call for his life and then had enough courage and faith to enter into a very powerful personal relationship with God the Father.

Dare to let God do the same for you. God will work with anyone who is willing to enter into this realm with Him.

2. Moses Was Not Afraid of the Manifest Presence of God

Not only was Moses not afraid to enter into a close, intimate, personal relationship with the Lord, but he also was not afraid of the manifest presence of God.

Some of you may have had some incredible manifestation activity with the Lord - with most of it being with the Holy Spirit. However, what we have found out is that this kind of supernatural activity can freak many people out - just like it did with the Israelites when God first appeared on Mount Sinai.

It’s one thing to know that God and Jesus are up in heaven at a safe distance from all of us - but it’s quite another thing once anyone starts to receive direct manifestation activity from the Lord.

People seem to really be afraid of any kind of direct contact with God. But for those of you who have had some kind of direct supernatural activity from the Lord, I'm sure you can testify that there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of in reference to the manifestations that we have all received. I won’t go any further on this subject in this article, as this would be an entire article all in itself.

However, for those of you who are very comfortable and very appreciative of these manifestations when they do occur, just remember the story of Moses and what an incredible thing it really is whenever God does decide to manifest Himself to you in any way that He should choose to do so. It really is an incredible blessing, and it makes our walk in the Lord that much more fun and exciting to be in!

3. Moses Was an Excellent Representative for God

The Bible says we are to be ambassadors for Christ. We are His representatives. One of the most amazing things about the story of Moses is that Moses stayed true, loyal and faithful to God the Father during the entire 40 year journey in the wilderness. The Bible says that the Israelites were constantly complaining, moaning and bellyaching about their lot. Not enough food, not enough water, not enough this, not enough that.

The Bible says that they lacked for nothing. God made sure they had enough manna raining down from heaven on a daily basis to keep them properly fed. They also had no problems with God providing adequate shelter and protection for them. Still this was not enough. And remember, every one of the Israelite men 20 years and older did not make it into the Promised Land due to their lack of faith and failing to follow God fully.

Thus Moses was constantly surrounded by negativity and pessimism with all of these people surrounding him. And yet Moses never tired of talking about God, teaching about God and His ways, and making sure that all of God's laws and commandments were enforced among the people.

Moses was the perfect representative for God in a sea of negativity. Negativity and pessimism can be contagious - but it never affected Moses. He stayed true, loyal and faithful to the Lord during these trying times and he never once strayed from God as His loyal representative.

Moses should serve as a powerful role model for any Christian who finds himself in an environment of negativity and pessimism - either at home or in the workplace. God can still use you and your testimony in a mighty way when the time is right.

4. Standing in the Gap

Moses personally did one of the most amazing things in all of the Old Testament - he got God to change His mind!

When Moses was up on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights with God the Father getting the 10 commandments and many of the other basic laws and commandments that God was wanting His people to live by, the Israelites were down at the bottom of the mountain making a false idol by way of a golden calf.

When God sees this, He becomes so furious that He literally wanted to consume the Israelites right there on the spot. However, when Moses sees how mad God is getting and what God is wanting to do to these people, Moses immediately "steps into the gap" for his people and begins trying to reason and plead with God as to why He should change His mind and not kill them.

Here is the verse that tells you word for word what Moses said to God to get Him to change His mind:

Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: "Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, "He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?’

Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever." "So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people." (Exodus 32:11-14)

This part of Moses' story shows you the power of intercessory prayer and what prayer can accomplish if God is properly approached. God can be moved to answer prayer, especially prayers that come from the heart. Standing in the gap means you personally stand in the gap for someone else. You are praying to God for someone else.

Sometimes people may be to weak to pray for themselves. Other times some people are either not saved or they have no real personal relationship established with God and are not confident enough to get God to answer their personal prayers. There could be many different reasons as to why you would have to stand in the gap for someone else and go to God and ask God to do something specific on that other person’s behalf.

Moses gives a perfect example on how to step into the gap to intercede for someone else. If Moses can do this, so can any other Christian who has established a good working relationship with the Lord.

This type of prayer can save lives, transform lives and alter the course of natural events. There are other Scripture verses that say that we can approach God to reason with Him - to state our case with Him. This means God can be talked to, reasoned with, pleaded with, and sometimes persuaded to change His mind on something.

Moses is a very good role model and example on how to go into intercessory prayer with God the Father for someone else.

5. The Anointing

When God first makes contact with Moses, He tells Moses that He has chosen him to go into Egypt to deliver the children of Israel from out of their bondage and slavery to the Egyptians. Moses then starts to argue with God that who is he to accomplish such a mission, that he is slow of speech and tongue, and for God to consider asking someone else to do this.

God then replies back to Moses that he has nothing to worry about, that God will be with him, and that God will be with his mouth and teach him what to say. In other words, God was telling Moses that His anointing would be on him to accomplish this incredible task.

All Christians need to realize that if God calls you to do anything on His behalf, He will also anoint you with His power to get the job done. All Christians have the Holy Spirit living and dwelling on the inside of them. The Anointing of God is really the presence and power of the Holy Spirit operating through you to accomplish whatever God has sent you out to do.

The story of Moses is a dramatic example of the "anointing in action" operating through an individual to accomplish what appeared to be an impossible mission. But look at what happened when Moses stepped out and entered into God’s power and anointing! He literally accomplished the impossible through the power of God and changed the entire course of Jewish history!

The odds were totally against Moses accomplishing such a deliverance! However, the Bible says that nothing is impossible with God the Father. There is nothing He cannot do! This story proves, without any shadow of a doubt, that God’s power can overcome any situation - no matter how hopeless it may look to you in the natural.

For those of you who are ever faced with what appears to be an impossible mission or task to perform, just remember this man’s story and what happened when he was willing to step out with enough belief and faith in God to let God’s power operate and flow through him. He literally changed the entire course of Jewish history with the deliverance of the Israelites from their slavery to the Egyptians.

If God did all of this for Moses - what can He do for you?

6. The Tabernacle - God Will Lead You on a Daily Basis

One of the most amazing things that occurred in the Israelites 40 year journey into the wilderness was the building of a tabernacle to house the manifest presence of God. Once this tabernacle had been built, God’s manifest presence came down in the form of a cloud during the day and fire by night. During the day, the cloud would lift off and the Israelites would then follow the cloud to wherever God was going to lead them to that day.

God thus led them on an everyday basis through this 40-year journey in the wilderness. The lesson to be learned from this is that not only will God anoint you with His power to get the job done, but He will also guide and lead you every step of the way to get the job done. God will lead you on a daily basis as to what needs to be accomplished for that day. All you have to do is be willing to step into God’s leadings for your life, and He will then start to take control and lead you down the path that He will want you to travel on.

The Bible says that we are to be led by the Holy Spirit. God perfectly led Moses every step of the way the minute he decided to accept God’s call on his life. Again, if God did all of this for Moses, He will do it for each and every Christian who will fully surrender their lives over to Him and are willing to be led by the Holy Spirit on a daily basis.

God will anoint and empower you and perfectly lead you every step of the way if you are willing to take this journey with Him. It really is that simple!

What more can any Christian ask for? God's "power" and God's "leadings" are ready and waiting for each and every Christian who will fully surrender their lives over to Him.

This man's story proves that God can and will take each Christian on their own unique, individual and exciting journey with Him if they would only be willing to take that leap of faith and fully surrender their entire lives over to Him.

7. God Will Fight Battles For You When Needed

This story is a perfect example showing the extreme lengths and intensity to which God will go for you if He is forced to fight and engage with an enemy standing in your way.

God was wanting His people delivered from their slavery to the Egyptians and He was not going to take no for an answer. God threw 10 powerful judgments at the Pharaoh in order to break him so that he would let His people go. Finally, after breaking on the last judgment, the Pharaoh agrees to let God’s people go.

However, after initially letting them go, the Pharaoh all of a sudden changes his mind and starts back after them. The Israelites then get caught before the Red Sea. God then parts the Red Sea with a dry ground mass so they can safely cross over to the other side.

At this point, all the Egyptians had to do was to let these people go. They had just been hit by 10 powerful judgments from God - but they just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

They then start to cross over onto the dry ground mass that the Israelites had just crossed over on. At this point, God’s wrath comes into full manifestation. He causes the waters of the Red Sea to return back to normal.

When this happens, the Egyptians get caught on the dry ground mass and the sea waters completely drown and kill each and every one of them that tried to chase down God’s people. All of their dead bodies ended up being washed up on the shore for all of God’s people to see!

I have over 95 powerful battle verses in my index card system that show that God can fight and engage with your enemies if he has to. This story is a perfect example of what God can do on your behalf if He should choose to do so. God will protect His own if He has to. So not only do you get God’s power, anointing and leadings operating for you if you are willing come into a full surrender with Him, but you will also get His full protection as well!

8. Parting of the Red Sea

The actual parting of the Red Sea as described above has to be one of the most dramatic and powerful miracles in all of the Old Testament. This part of Moses’ story really has major significance for all Christians.

How many of you, or how many of you have known someone who has been at the end of their cliff or at the end of their rope with absolutely nowhere else to go. If God doesn’t come through with some kind of major miracle, they are either going to die, have to file bankruptcy, lose their entire business, lose their marriage, etc. We have all heard of these types of stories.

In the natural realm, they have nowhere else to go or turn to. The situation appears completely hopeless. The only thing that will save them is a major miracle from God. And then it happens - God comes through with some type of major miracle to either save their lives, keep them afloat, save the day, turn the tide or stop some kind of impending disaster from hitting them.

For those of you who have never been at the end of a rope or the end of a cliff needing a major miracle from God to save you, it is not something that you should ever want to experience. It is scary, nerve wracking and it will test your patience and faith in God to its absolute limits like it did with Moses and the Israelites.

The Israelites started complaining once they got caught in this situation. But Moses, whose faith and confidence in God had been built up during the time God was manifesting His 10 judgments on the Pharaoh, stepped forward and boldly proclaimed that God was going to save the day for them and that God would deliver them from the predicament that they now found themselves in. And sure enough God did - just like Moses proclaimed and believed he would!

If any of you should ever find yourself before your own personal red sea with nowhere else to go - just remember what God did for Moses. No matter how bleak or hopeless the situation may appear to you in the natural, remember that nothing is impossible with our God!

If God can literally part the Red Sea like He did in this story with Moses, then God can part and take care of your red sea if you are willing to press in, request that He help you out, and be willing to believe and have faith that He will take care of the situation!

For those of you who have had this type of miracle with God in your own lives, or for those of you who may experience something like this in the future, the one thing I can tell you is that it will increase your faith tenfold once you see God come in at the last minute to save you. It is an experience you will never, ever forget - and it will draw you that much closer to this awesome God of ours!

9. The Wilderness Experience

The 40-year wilderness experience that God put the Israelites through is something that He does to some of His own. In the story of Moses, the main reason He did it was to test the Israelites - to see if they would hold fast to Him, to see if they would follow Him fully, and to see if they would follow all of His laws and commandments.

As I said in the story of Moses, every one of the Israelites 20 years and older flunked this test. As a result, they were not allowed to enter into the Promised Land. Every one of them died out in the desert.

Some of you have had your wilderness experience with the Lord and some of you have not. There is a definite and specific reason that God will have some of His people undergo this type of experience. Here are some of the reasons.

a)  TO TEST YOU - to see if you have what it takes to make the grade, to make the call that He has set up for your life. Just like professional sport teams have try-outs to see who is going to be good enough to make the team - God will arrange to have some of you tested out to see if you will have enough faith in Him and have the fortitude, the patience, the resolve, the courage and the stamina to make it all the way through.

The Bible says that "Many are called, but few are chosen." I believe this verse is referring to the ones that God has put a call on. He has something specific that He wants them to do in this life. He has a mission and a purpose for their lives. I don’t believe this verse is referring to salvation. If it did, it would indicate that the majority of people are not going to get saved and make it into heaven.

This is also a price-paying period. As a result of the curse of Adam and Eve that is still in full operation in this world - there is a price to pay for anything good that we will want in this life. If you want God’s call on your life - if you want God’s best for your life - then there is going to be some type of price you are going to have to pay to receive this call. Many of the times this price is actually paid in some type of wilderness experience.

Some people don’t want to pay a price for anything. They want everything handed to them free of charge. These types of people will never make it with God in reference to the call that He would like to put on their lives.

b)  It is in the wilderness experience that you will really draw close to God. He’ll strip out many of the normal things in your life. You feel like your out in the desert all by yourself and that it is only you and God going through all of this. Your social life may wane during this time.

He also may strip your finances down during this period to just enough to get you by. The reason He is doing this is to see if you will stay faithful and loyal to Him. It’s easy to have faith and belief in God when everything is going good and great, but when things start to go bad, and you start to lose some of your material possessions, then the real test will come into play.

Will you stay true, loyal and faithful to God during these lean and dry times or will you bail out on Him because the going is getting too tough? Many people don’t make it through this time of testing, and they thus end up missing out on their calls with God. Had they made it all the through, God would have blessed them beyond their wildest dreams once they entered into their true calls with Him.

By going through these lean and dry times, it will also cause you to really start leaning and depending upon God more than you ever have before. It goes back to the vine and branch analogy. Jesus is the vine - we are the branches. The branches totally depend and lean on the vine for their life and support.

God wants the same thing from each of us. The wilderness experience will really cause this kind of grafting to take place with the Lord. This kind of an experience will usually make or break you in your personal relationship with God. If you make it all the way through and allow this grafting to occur, you will then become much more close to God in your own personal relationship with Him.

c)  This is also a time where a lot of knowledge will be worked into you regarding your specific call. Since much of your social time has been decreased, God will arrange for you to have more time to gain knowledge on whatever your call is going to be in Him. For many, the wilderness is where they make their greatest strides in spiritual growth.

I will be doing an article just on this one topic alone in the near future due to the importance of it. Again, this is not something that He puts everyone through. God alone will decide who goes through this type of testing and who will not. I will leave you with one last thought for those of you who either may be in some type of wilderness experience at this time or who may be brought into one sometime in the future.

If God wants to arrange this type of experience for your own spiritual growth and development in Him - rest assured that you have what it takes to make it through.

If God is going to call you to do something specific for Him in this life, then you can full faith and assurance that God knows exactly what He is doing with you, that you can trust Him to see you all the way through and that you will make the team and the call that He has set up for your life once you have passed all of your tests.

Remember one last thing. All of the Israelites 20 years and older in the story of Moses all flunked their test in the wilderness. And look what they missed out on - entry into the Promised Land. Joshua and Caleb led the younger generation into this Promised Land and they all received the abundant blessings that God had in store for them in this land.

Your promised land is God’s call on your life. Stay the course with God, hold fast to Him, let Him complete whatever He wants to do with you in this wilderness experience and you will then be rewarded - possibly beyond your wildest dreams or expectations!

10. Don’t Always Be Questioning God

There is a time to question God - to press in and seek after answers from Him. The Bible says to ask - and you shall receive. Seek - and you will find. However, there is also a time not to question God and to accept whatever He is telling you!

When God first makes contact with Moses through the burning bush, He tells Moses exactly what He wants from him. He tells Moses that He will use him to deliver the children of Israel out from under their Egyptian bondage.

During this initial conversation with God, Moses questions God’s wisdom of choosing him for the job! Moses says that who is he to accomplish such a task. He says he is too slow of speech and tongue and then he finally tells God to consider calling someone else for the job.

The Bible says that Moses ended up kindling the anger of God with the pessimism that he was showing to God. God finally gives in at this point and tells Moses that He will also anoint his brother Aaron for the job, that He will be with the both of them, and that Aaron will be his mouthpiece to the people since Moses had no faith in God’s anointing to enable him to speak effectively to the people and to the Pharaoh.

I believe God’s original plan was just to anoint Moses for the job. However, when he showed God three times that he had no confidence in his own abilities to do this, God then goes to Plan B and anoints and sends his brother Aaron to go with him.

You can really feel as you study the conversation that was occurring between God and Moses - that Moses should have never questioned God’s decision to call him out for this job. And look at what happened. God’s anointing came onto both Moses and Aaron and they both were able to fully accomplish the mission.

The lesson to be learned from this is that if God does call you and ask you to do something specific - do not question His wisdom on the matter. God’s knowledge and ways are absolutely perfect. Even if you do not think you have what it takes to accomplish what He is asking you to do, remember that His anointing and His power will be on you to enable you to accomplish that task or mission!

Moses and Aaron had absolutely no problems in accomplishing this impossible mission because God’s anointing and power got the job done for them. All they had to do was to do exactly what God was telling them to do on a step-by-step basis. God then did the rest.

If any of you are ever asked by God to do something that is out of your comfort zone, out of your own natural abilities - remember this part of the story of Moses. Just as God’s power and anointing was more than enough to get the job done through Moses - His power flowing through you will be more than enough to successfully accomplish whatever He is asking you to do.

If there is nothing impossible with God - then there is nothing that God cannot do through you - just like the story of Moses perfectly illustrates!

The story of Moses is a perfect, dramatic, and powerful example of just how far someone can go with God if they are willing to follow God fully and not be afraid to walk with His anointing.

Burn this man’s story into your memory banks - it is one of the most ultimate power stories in God that the world has ever seen!

11. Do Not Disobey a Direct Order From God

The saddest part of this man’s story is that he was not allowed to go into the Promised Land because of one act of disobedience. God had given him a direct order to speak out to a rock and God would then cause water to flow out from this rock.

For some strange reason, Moses ends up striking the rock twice with his rod instead of speaking out to it as God had specifically commanded him to do. Moses had disobeyed a direct order from God on how to perform this miracle. As a result, God kept him from going into the Promised Land and he then died out in the wilderness.

Some people may wonder why God was so harsh with Moses on this particular matter. Moses had done just about everything else right in God - so why would God hold this one thing against him? I believe the main reason is that God was holding Moses to a much higher standard. The Bible says that to whom much is given - much more will be expected!

Moses was also dealing with a miracle that God wanted to perform. When you get into this level with God where He is manifesting miracles through you - you have to be operating in perfect obedience to God. There is no negotiating with God in this level.

If God wants to manifest a particular miracle through you - then you better do exactly what God says as to how He wants to bring the miracle or manifestation about. This is one area where you cannot question God or attempt to try and do it your own way.

If you do, you could seriously jeopardize anything else that God may want to do through you. You could lose your call, your ministry, your anointing and any other blessings that God may have had in store for you.

For those of you who ever receive any type of direct order or command from God on any issue - do not disobey the order or try to do it your way like Moses did. If you do, the consequences could be severe. In some cases, it could be a matter of your own life and death. Remember - God always knows best - you don't.

Conclusion

Though the story of Moses ends up on a rather sad note with him not being able to enter into the Promised Land, just remember all of the good things that he did right in God. In one lifetime - in a 40 year period - Moses was able to:

1. Speak direct to God through a burning bush.
    
2. Be used by God to change the course of Jewish history by delivering the Israelites from the Egyptians.
    
3. Watch God throw 10 powerful judgments against Egypt.
    
4. Watch God part the Red Sea.
    
5. Personally receive 10 commandments from God the Father.
    
6. Talk a second time again with God the Father up on Mt. Sinai.
    
7. Be able to see the manifest presence of God - with God showing him His back side up on Mt. Sinai.
    
8. Watch God’s manifest presence come down on the tabernacle that they had built and lead them on a daily basis.
    
9. And then be directly responsible for the teaching of God and all of His ways to the younger generation of Israelites who eventually would be the ones to enter into the Promised Land.

And all of this occurred within a 40 year time period! Now that's what you call a major power story in God.

 

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Story of Moses of the Bible

List of the 10 Bible Commandments

Story of Adam and Eve

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Scripture taken from New King James Version.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005-2008 by Michael Bradley.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.