Transformed by the Renewing of the Mind

Romans 12:1-2 (NKJV) ¹  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. ²  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

As we continue to look at Moses, we have learned that, even though he was called by God to be the deliverer of Israel from Egypt, he could not accomplish this task because he thought like an Egyptian.  The reason was that he was raised, educated and culturally developed as an Egyptian.  It took 40 years of God dealing with him in the wilderness for him to think enough like God for him to be able to do what God wanted him to in the way God needed him to do it.  He was a completely changed man because he thought differently than when he was an Egyptian.

Then we saw that Jesus thought differently than anyone in the world.  Why?  Because his relationship with the Father had more influence on his thinking than anything natural life had brough to him.  In John 1:14, Jesus is called the Word of God made flesh.  The Word of God through his relationship with the Father, determined his way of looking at the world and how he would live in it.  It determined his limitations and his capabilities.  When faced with a challenge, he saw the possibilities from the perspective of God’s almighty nature.  When faced with decisions concerning behavior, he thought according to God’s will and ways.  He lived a limitless life because he thought “the Word of God” within his relationship with God.

We have quoted today’s scripture a number of times, but I want to focus on it a little more today.  Paul is talking about the same thing we have been looking at.  Moses was transformed by the renewing of his mind to think less like an Egyptian and more according to God’s will and nature.  Jesus needed no transformation because he was born of the seed of God’s Word.  Humanly, he was what he was because he was the Word made flesh. 

Our lives are what they are because of how we think.  Moses was raised as an Egyptian, dominated by Egyptian culture and educated in an Egyptian way.  I was raised as an American, dominated by an American culture and educated in an American way.  Moses lived in a particular kind of Egyptian family.  He was a nobleman in their society.  I was raised by a working-class mother and father.  Moses thought like an Egyptian nobleman.  I thought like an American blue-collar worker. 

I was born again at 14 and filled with the Spirit at 17.  2 Corinthians 5:17-21 says I was made a new creature and the righteousness of God at 14 when I received Jesus.  Yet I still thought like a working-class American boy.  I did not know how to think any other way.  When I was with my Christian friends, I acted like as much of a Christian as I could.  When I was with my other friends, I acted just like they did.  I did not know how to think any other way.  That is the condition Paul is trying to remedy in Romans 12.  I needed to learn to think differently.  If I did, I would act differently. 

The beginning of that process was when I was filled with the Holy Spirit of God.  This happened to me when I was 17 between my junior and senior year of high school.  I am a committed Charismatic/Pentecostal Christian.  I believe in the infilling or baptism of the Holy Spirit as a vital experience for any believer.  I believe we see it in the scriptures, and I know in my life it opened up something that was not there before.  That said, I know that many who read this may come from other Christian backgrounds.  What I think we all can agree on is that the yielding of our lives more completely to God is where the renewing of the mind begins.  That is what I did which led to being filled with the Spirit.

The first change I noticed was that the Word of God became more real to me.  I began to see things in the Bible I had not seen before.  As I continued to read and study, I began to change how I thought about many things.  The first thing that changed was my behavior and my willingness to stand for Christ.  In my junior year, my Christian friends knew I was saved but I did not show that to the world.  In my senior year my nickname among my unsaved friends was preacher. 

I started a Bible study and prayer meeting in the school.  My future wife and some of my friends started a Christian band.  This was long before “Contemporary Christian music” became a commodity.  Even at that time the debate about separation of church and state was raging.  Yet we were allowed to lead an assembly for the whole high school singing our music and giving our testimonies.  We spent the rest of the day going to various classrooms, answering questions and sharing the love of Jesus.

What happened to me?  The Word of God began to be revealed to me by the Spirit of God.  As the Word began to take root in my life, the Spirit empowered me to allow it to begin to dominate my thinking and, thereby my actions.  This was very much only the beginning.  I had not started living life as an adult, but as I grew up I also grew in renewing my way of thinking with the word.  I did not have a great deal of church or religious training.  I was a “not very good” Catholic.  When I met Jesus, I found something religion could not teach me.  I met the Word of God made flesh.  The more I studied, meditated and lived the Bible, the more my life was transformed to his image. 

I believe this process is vital to every believer.  Many are born again but never yield their life to the Holy Spirit in a way that gives him control.  Many are saved and genuinely want to live Christianity, by they just cannot seem to overcome the tendencies of the flesh.  They go to church and get a Sunday morning sermon.  Maybe they go to a Bible study or other type of ministry.  Yet because they never allow the Word of God to become a dominant force in their lives, it never really changes how they think.  There may be some change to what they think, but the level under the surface remains dominated by their family, culture and education in the world. 

In today’s scripture Paul, in just a few words makes it clear what we need after the new birth.  We need our minds to think like God thinks not like the world thinks.  I want to look at two other translations.

Romans 12:2 (NLT)  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

The Amplified Bible gives further insight.

Romans 12:2 (AMP)  Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].

In the expansion of the word “conformed” we see what we do not want.  We do not want our lives to be made by or adapted to the external customs of this age.  There is more pressure from the world in this area than ever before.  Instead, we need to be changed by a new set of Ideals and attitudes.  Where do we find these ideals and attitudes?  We find them in the word of God.  The more we allow the Word of God to dominate our ideals and attitudes the more we will display before the world the will and ways of God.  If we do not, we will not.  It is just that simple.

For Audio Messages Visit: https://anchor.fm/bill-kiefer or search Practical Wisdom from the Word of God or Bill Kiefer on Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.

Thanksgiving is a Force That Will Bring Blessing to Your Life

Luke 17:17-19 (KJV) ¹⁷  And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? ¹⁸  There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. ¹⁹  And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

Yesterday we began the holiday season with Thanksgiving Day.  We need to understand the importance of thanksgiving in the life of a Christian.  I am not really talking about the holiday here.  I am talking about the act of giving thanks unto God every day of our Christian walk.  I do believe that the Lord had a hand in making Thanksgiving the opening event of the Christmas season in the United States.  If we begin this busy and often stressful time of year with a heart of true thanksgiving it would change our whole perspective.

Being thankful is not just a response for a believer.  Giving thanks to God is also a causal force.  We do not only respond to the good things God brings to our lives by giving thanks, but giving thanks actually draws good things to us.  It changes things in the spirit.  As such, thanksgiving is one of the spiritual weapons we must use to win the war for the soul of our world.

A continuing theme for me recently has been the simple truth that Christianity is a radical lifestyle.  In the sermon on the mount Jesus said many times, “You have heard it said …..But I say.”  The revelation here is that the world operates one way, but the body of Christ must operate in a very different manner.  When we talk about weapons and warfare, we must understand that our weapons and our warfare are also completely different from what they would be in the world. 

We generally do not see giving thanks as a weapon.  When we are threatened, we do not give thanks.  We fight back.  However, when we give thanks to God in every circumstance, we are fighting warfare in the spirit with weapons against which the devil has no defense.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NKJV) ¹⁶  Rejoice always, ¹⁷  pray without ceasing, ¹⁸  in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

There was a teaching many years ago, that said we should give thanks for all things because anything that happens to us must be the will of God for our lives.  This is not what the verse says.  It tells us to give thanks in all things.  Rejoicing always, praying without ceasing and giving thanks are the will of God for you no matter what you are going through.  When we do these things, the devil cannot defeat us.

I want to look at this story from today’s scripture in Luke’s Gospel.  Earlier in this chapter, we see 10 lepers who come to Jesus and cry out for him to heal them.  Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priests.  To understand what is happening here we need to know the social ramifications of this disease.

I have seen leprosy, and it is not a pretty sight.  In the days of Jesus, this was similar to what Aids is to us in that it was incurable and carried a severe stigma.  The person with leprosy was literally eaten alive by the disease.  Noses might be eaten away.  Often the person would be without fingers or toes.  They believed it to be highly contagious. 

A person with leprosy was legally and religiously unclean.  He or she would have to stay away from everyone who did not have the disease.  If they went out in public at all, they had to cry out, “Unclean!”  This was so that people would know to stay away from them.  They would be segregated in “leper colonies” away from their friends and family.  It did not matter how rich they might be or even what their position was in life, if they were a leper, everyone rejected them and left them to die.

If by some medicine or miracle a leper was cured of the disease, the only way they could go back into society was to show the priest proof that they were no longer leprous.  If they went to the priest and were not free of the leprosy, they risked possible death because those who were unclean could not approach anything holy.  This is why the 10 cried out from “far off.”  (Vs. 13) 

When Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priest, it took faith for them to go.  They had not yet been healed.  However, they obeyed Jesus and as they went, God touched their bodies, and they were no longer leprous.  All ten of them had faith.  All ten of them were healed.  Nine of them continued on to the priests to reclaim their lives.  That is what Jesus told them to do.

We cannot say that the nine did anything wrong.  The fact that they obeyed and went to show themselves to the priest proved their faith in Jesus.  However, one of them simply could not continue on his way when he saw that he was healed.  I am sure the others were grateful, but this man’s heart of thanksgiving would not allow him to take one more step until he went back to thank God for what had been done to him.

The one so moved with thanks to God was a Samaritan, a hated foreigner.  I want you to see something about thanksgiving in this story.  All ten were healed.  All ten had faith.  This one man responded with radical thanksgiving.  The impact of his thanksgiving did not end with the response.  Because he came back and gave thanks to Jesus, the Lord says that he was made whole.  His thanksgiving was not just a response to good things it was a cause of something that was an even greater good!

I do not know exactly what Jesus meant when he said the man was made whole.  I think it could mean that things the leprosy had eaten away were restored to his body.  Imagine seeing his nose made whole in an instant.  That would be something to see.  This disease can eat away fingers, toes and even hands.  It would be wonderful to be free of leprosy, but how much greater would it be to have your body complete again.

I think being made whole also means restoration from the spiritual and psychological effects of the disease.  What would it do to someone to be taken from his or her family and friends?  How damaging would it be to have to cry out “unclean” as you walked down the street?  I think to be made whole would also mean healing in those areas as well. 

Faith connects us to God and the realm of the spirit.  I believe it bridges the gap between the natural and the supernatural.  Faith is one of the most important weapons in our arsenal.  However, as important as faith is, when it is coupled with active and radical thanksgiving there is a completely new level of power that is released.  Faith healed ten and made them clean.  Adding the weapon of thanksgiving to his arsenal caused the Samaritan to be made whole.

Find something to give thanks for today.  Add this powerful force to your spiritual arsenal.  When we are going through difficulties, it can be hard to be thankful.  Ask the Holy Spirit to help you.  If there is something God has done for you, stop where you are and thank him.  Thank him for your job, your family and your friends.  Most of all thank him for salvation.  You will never see a day in hell because of what Jesus did for you. 

Your attitude of thanksgiving will change the spiritual atmosphere around you.  It will cause people to be drawn to you and you will be able to share the gospel in a much more effective way.  Good things will be drawn to your life as you actively and radically give thanks to the Lord.

Use this mighty force as you walk through this season.  Especially be thankful for the wonderful gift of salvation that came to the earth when Jesus was born.  His birth began a process that changed everything.  Remember that if it seems you have nothing else to thank God for.  As you do, the Lord will help you remember all the blessings he has brought to your life this year and the whole year we are about to enter will change for the better. 

For Audio Messages Visit: https://anchor.fm/bill-kiefer or search Practical Wisdom from the Word of God or Bill Kiefer on Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.

How did Jesus Think?

Matthew 6:31-32 (NKJV) ³¹  Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²  For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

We have been looking at the life of Moses with a specific focus.  We have seen that Moses was highly qualified to be the deliverer of Israel if we look at him in the natural.  However, God had to take him out of Egypt and into the wilderness so that he could become qualified in the spirit to do the job.  It took God 40 years of dealing with Moses to get him to stop thinking like an Egyptian general and cause him to think in the way God needed him to think.  How he saw life and how he interpreted it as an Egyptian would not allow him to do what he needed to do to deliver Israel. 

We also think in ways that are not in harmony with the way God thinks.  We have looked at Isaiah 55 which tells us that both God’s thoughts and his ways are higher than ours.  I am convinced that one leads to the other.  God does not think like we think therefore his ways are different.  If we could elevate our thinking to the way God thinks, we would be more likely to walk in his ways.  What we usually do is try to live his way while our thinking is still dominated by the world and the flesh.  This is very difficult.

Let me try to illustrate this idea using the life of Jesus.  We can see from today’s scripture a fundamental truth about how Jesus saw life.  Whatever we face in life, our Father knows what we need.  There is no need to worry because God is going to take care of us, no matter what.  That was not some kind of philosophy or discipline.  It was just how Jesus thought.  It is how he responded to life.  What if that could become our way of thinking.  What if we naturally filtered everything through that lens.  Not by discipline but by relationship.  How would we react to challenges that come our way.

How did Jesus view sickness and disease?  When confronted with a leper, did he think like the world of his day thought.  If a leper was out in public he was required to shout, “Unclean, unclean.”  He did this so that people would know to stay away from him.  When a person of Jesus day saw a leper, their immediate thought was death.  They would stay as far away as possible. 

This was not just a thought that came into their mind.  It was a way of thinking about this disease.  It was part of their culture, their education and their social understanding.  Leprosy meant a slow death and separation from all of their loved ones and the rest of society.  Their way of thinking would not let them see it any other way.  Jesus did not think the way the rest of his culture thought about leprosy, but it had nothing to do with learning.

Mark 1:40-41 (NKJV) ⁴⁰  Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” ⁴¹  Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

Because we do not think of leprosy the way they did, we read this and simply think, “Jesus healed a leper.”  What is said is much more impactful if we factor in how people thought at that time.  It says that Jesus touched the man.  The idea of touching a leper was terrifying to most people.  Jesus healed in many ways.  He often spoke to people and brought healing to them.  Why did he not simply speak to the leper?  That is what it appears he did in Luke 17:14.

In Mark, he touched the man.  His mind did not jump to images of his body being eaten away by this dreaded disease.  His mind saw a person that needed healing.  His way of thinking was determined by what he knew of his Father and how He thought about disease.  God created the human body.  It was no problem for him to heal it. 

When we hear the word “cancer” our response is usually that it is a probable death sentence.  Recent discoveries and treatments have mitigated that to some degree, but it is still not a word we want to hear in relation to our lives or the lives of our loved ones.  How do you think Jesus would respond to the word “cancer.”  We cannot imagine that he would be fearful.  Why?  His thoughts were higher than our thoughts therefore his ways are higher than ours.  He thinks in terms of the power of the almighty and the love and care he has for people.  So to Jesus, cancer would not equal death it would simply be one more thing that God has no problem changing.

Of course, I understand that we are still human.  We still think according to our experience and the rest of the influences that have been in our lives since we were born.  If a person were to get a cancer diagnosis, it is natural to be afraid.  There is no condemnation warranted when our thinking controls our actions.  We really have no choice.  That said, we can change how we think.  It takes time and effort.  It is not something that will happen immediately.  None of us will come to the place where we think like God in our lifetime.  It is possible to gradually think more like God. 

In our last post we read Romans 12:1-2.  Paul calls it renewing our mind.  The more I learn to see things the way God sees them and filter my reactions by what I know about God, the more my life will be transformed into what God wanted for me all along.  The more I simply assume my thinking that has been dominated by the world and the flesh is just the way it has to be, the more I will become so grounded in this kind of thinking that I will not be able to change.  In fact, I will be more and more conformed to the limitations and ways of the world.  I will never be able to rise above them.

This involves the things that God promises in his word, such as healing, provision and successful living.  More important, it applies to our behavior.  If we do not begin to think like God thinks, we will find it very difficult to overcome sin.  We will find it difficult to live as a Christian in the world.  We will find it difficult to overcome discouragement and we will be more prone to things like depression.  Family life may be difficult and finding our way in the world will be greatly hindered. 

What if we could begin to think like Jesus in every area of life.  Is there anything too hard for God?  We saw how Jesus thought about sickness and disease.  How did he think about provision.  Jesus never did without what he needed.  When confronted with a need to provide for 5000 men plus woman and children, what did he do.  Was he worried?  Did he tell them they would have to fend for themselves?  No!  He took a little boy’s lunch of 5 loaves of bread and two small fish and fed them all.  We would never come up with that solution because we would never think that was a possibility.

How did Jesus think about doing the will of God in his life.  He said, “I do what I see my Father do and say what I hear my Father say.”  When confronted with the cross in Gethsemane, his way of thinking came immediately to the surface. 

Matthew 26:39 (NKJV)  He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”

This was not something Jesus had to try to work up.  He was under great duress, but his way of thinking left no room for any other response, but to understand that Father’s will was more important than his own well-being.  That is because in his way of thinking, if the Father was asking for something, it was because he had something great that would happen in the end.  The more our thoughts conform to God’s thoughts, the more we will see God’s ways manifest in our daily living.

For Audio Messages Visit: https://anchor.fm/bill-kiefer or search Practical Wisdom from the Word of God or Bill Kiefer on Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.

Moses Needed a Transformation

Isaiah 55:8-11 (NKJV) ⁸  “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. ⁹  “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰  “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, ¹¹  So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

We have been looking at the life of Moses in the context of what he needed in order to be God’s deliverer of the Israelites from Egypt.  In the natural, Moses was highly qualified.  He had the best education Egypt had to offer.  History seems to indicate that Moses was also a successful General in the Army of Egypt.  Finally, he was not a youth as he was 40 years old when he went to see the condition of his people.  You could not ask for a more qualified deliverer, at least from a natural perspective. 

In Acts 7 we read that Moses apparently thought so too as he assumed his people would receive him as their leader.  He was very wrong.  When he attempted to act as a deliverer, he ended up rejected by his people and a fugitive from Pharoah.  For the next 40 years he was nothing more than a husband, father and shepherd.  He was a normal person just like any of us.  One day after all that time he had his “burning bush” encounter with God and finally was sent to do what God had called him to all along.  Moses had undergone a transformation.

Moses failed because of how he thought.  He thought like an Egyptian.  He not only thought like an Egyptian, but he thought like an Egyptian nobleman and general.  Despite his natural qualifications, God could not use him as deliverer under the Abrahamic covenant because he did not think like a covenant Hebrew.  His attitudes and priorities were shaped by his Egyptian thinking.  He had to be transformed in his mind in order to begin to think the way God needed him to think.  He needed to understand that he was going to deliver Israel by God’s ability and in God’s way not in his Egyptian way. 

It took 40 years for this process to produce in Moses’ life what God wanted.  In the end we see from his response to God at the burning bush that he no longer thought like an Egyptian noble or general.  He knew he could not do what God needed done.  He was now ready for God to use him.  One of the most striking examples of how much Moses had changed can be found in the book of Numbers.

Numbers 12:3 (NKJV)  (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.)

In a dispute between him and his brother and sister, Moses is accused of thinking he is the only one who could hear from God.  Miriam declared that she and Aaron were just as qualified to lead as Moses.  I believe the Egyptian general and nobleman would have put these two in their place.  He probably would have reminded them about the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea and how he had caused the Egyptian army to be drowned when the waters returned.  Instead, he says nothing at all.  In the verse above we see why.  Moses, the great Egyptian general was now more humble than anyone else on the whole planet.  That is quite a change.

In Moses’ case, it took 40 years of God working in his life to change Moses’ way of thinking.  Life certainly has a way of doing that.  I do not think now like I did when I went into the ministry at 24.  Experience has changed how I think about many things.  Success changes our thinking and, often, failure does so even more.  However, life experience alone may cause our thinking to be more flawed and less according to God’s ways.  God dealt with Moses and he deals with us, but there is another factor that comes into play with the believer.  We see it in today’s scripture.

Isaiah 55 is a powerful chapter.  As we read it, we find that this is not quite the same as so many prophecies to Israel.  Most of the time we read about how Israel had failed and fallen away from God.  This is certainly what happened in the time of Isaiah.  The prophets will often state how far Israel had fallen.  He will usually speak of the judgements that have come or will come upon Israel.  Then they might say how Israel can be restored.  This chapter is a little different. 

Isaiah does not rebuke them at all.  Instead, it is a chapter about what God wants to do for them.  The only verse that even mentions repentance is verse 7 and that ends with the thought that God will abundantly pardon.  The only requirement is that the unrighteous must for sake his ways and his thoughts.  This is a chapter about how to live in abundance.

What we see is the same thing we saw in Moses.  The only thing keeping Israel from living in the abundance of their covenant with God is the simple fact that God’s thoughts were higher than their thoughts and this caused their ways not to be God’s ways.  If they would allow God to change their thinking, they would be able to walk in his ways.  His ways are higher than their ways resulting in better life.  How are they to change their thinking.

We have already pointed this out in our last post, but it bears repeating.  God did not end this chapter with verse 10.  The whole point is verse 11.  His ways are higher than our ways because his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  How can we learn to think more like God.  He says his Word is the thing that will change how we think.  He points out that God’s Word will accomplish his purpose.  In this chapter what he wants it to do is bring us to abundant life by changing our thoughts to conform more to his.  There is something about the word of God that can change how we think.  Paul points us in the same direction in the New Testament.

Romans 12:2 (NKJV)  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Here Paul points out that we are still being conformed to the world outwardly even though the new birth has completely changed us inwardly.  Why?  The reason is that we think like the world.  His solution was that we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  What is it that renews our minds?  It is the Word of God.  Hebrews 4:12 tells us why.

Hebrews 4:12 (NKJV)  For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

If we see the Word of God as just a book of philosophy, doctrine or theology we are missing the most powerful fact about the Bible.  It is much more than any of those things.  It is alive.  It is infused with the power of God.  This is the power spoken of in Isaiah 55.  It has the power to change how we think by transforming our thinking to be more and more like God’s thinking. 

Over the next few weeks we are going to look at the transforming power of the Word of God.  As this happens, we will begin to see the world more as God sees it.  We will respond to things more like God does.  We will have access to God’s power to live life as he intended us to.  That is what we must have to win the battles that are going to face us in today’s world.

For Audio Messages Visit: https://anchor.fm/bill-kiefer or search Practical Wisdom from the Word of God or Bill Kiefer on Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.

Moses; God’s Deliverer Part 4

Exodus 3:9-11 (NKJV) ⁹  Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰  Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” ¹¹  But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

As we have looked at the life of Moses, there are some things we need to be aware of.  We have seen that Moses was the most qualified candidate anyone could find to lead Israel out of Egyptian bondage.  He was perfect from a natural viewpoint, but he failed initially because he was not what God needed him to be.  All his experience and training would do him no good if he was going to be God’s deliverer.

We found what the problem was in Isaiah 55: 8.  God’s ways are higher than man’s ways because God’s thoughts are higher than Man’s thoughts.  Moses thought Egyptian thoughts.  He was raised an Egyptian.  He was educated as an Egyptian.  His culture was Egyptian.  Even though his DNA was Hebrew, he thought like and Egyptian. 

God removed Moses from Egypt so that he could learn a different way to think.  We have seen many of the things that God did to bring this change into his life.  He took away everything that made him special.  He became a husband, a father and the shepherd of another man’s sheep.  For forty years he did nothing special.  He was a normal person just like you and me.  We found as he was faithful to do what God asked him to do, he gradually changed in his attitudes and his way of thinking until one day God manifested himself to him in a miraculous sign.  He chose to turn aside and recognize that something Holy was happening to him.

The next thing we see in this story is what shows us that the Moses who left Egypt is not the Moses that encounters God at the burning bush.  God tells Moses that he has heard the cry of God’s people, and the time has come for them to be delivered from Egypt.  There is a land that God promised Abraham and God was going to bring them to that land with great power.  He say’s to Moses, “I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

What would the Moses who thought like an Egyptian have said.  An Egyptian nobleman, much less a general, would have been full of self-confidence.  He believed he was the man for the job forty years ago when he killed the Egyptian and gave the Israelites a chance to receive his obvious ability to be their leader.  The old Egyptian Moses might have said something like, “It’s about time!  I have been wasting my life for forty years in this place where I couldn’t do anything.  Well, better late than never.  Let’s get to it God!”

What we read is something very different.  Moses’ response is not full of self-confidence or arrogance.  Instead, Moses tells God, “You need to find someone else.  I tried that once and it didn’t work out so well.”  What is different.  Moses no longer thinks like an Egyptian.  He thinks like a normal husband and father.  He thinks like someone who cares for another man’s sheep.  He has lost all the confidence he had in his Egyptian way.  He sees himself as nobody and unable to do what God asks.  God can work with that.

In the rest of chapter three and into chapter four, God begins to change Moses’ way of thinking.  One thing I want to point to is what God said to Moses after telling him he was on holy ground.  He reveals that he is the God of the covenant.  The one they worship without even knowing his name is the one who is calling him.  Moses asks God, “Who am I that I should deliver Israel.”  The first change in Moses’ thinking is to understand that it is not a matter of who Moses is, it is who God is that counts.  In response to Moses’ who am I question, God says, “I will go with you.” 

Moses’ was so full of who he was when he thought like an Egyptian, that he could not understand that he was not the focus of what God wanted.  Now he is learning to think in terms of who God is and what God can do instead of who he is and what he can do.  No matter how great an Egyptian Moses was, it would not have been enough to deliver Israel.  Even if he was the greatest general to ever live, the people of Israel were slaves.  They thought like slaves and acted like slaves.  They could not really see themselves as anything else.  A general is no use to slaves. 

Another thing I want to point out is how God was working this in Moses the whole time he was in the wilderness.  He spent forty years as a husband and a father.  God is a father to us.  In the New Testament we see God in Christ has a bride, so he is, in a sense a husband.  However, he is not an Egyptian father or husband.  Moses had to learn how God thought and acted as both. 

Finally, there is the matter of Moses taking care of his father-in-law’s sheep.  After forty years we read in Exodus three that the sheep were still Jethro’s sheep.  When Jacob worked for fourteen years for Laban to earn the right to marry his daughters, he built his own flock as well as caring for Laban’s.  Yet in forty years, Moses has nothing the Bible calls his own.  How could that be?  Why would God do that?  I believe it is God’s way of changing how Moses thought.

As an Egyptian, if Moses successfully led the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage, he would have expected to be their ruler for life.  He would have expected to be a king who was revered and honored.  He would have expected to be remembered as a great leader of his people.  However, Israel was never his people, they were God’s people.  Moses was their leader in the wilderness, but he was never their king. 

When God was going to destroy Israel because of their sin at Sinai, Moses prays to God.  An Egyptian leader might have prayed for his people.  Moses did not.  In Exodus 32 Moses pleads for God’s people.  Where did Moses learn that the people were not his but God’s?  He learned it by taking care of another man’s sheep for forty years.  He no longer thought like an Egyptian.  He had learned to think more and more like God.  It took forty years for this change to happen in Moses’ life.  Would you trade forty years of that kind of preparation to have the success Moses did?  I would.

We face challenges today like no other time in my lifetime.  I believe there is a battle waging between light and darkness.  It is a personal battle that we must win to protect our lives and the lives of our family.  We are not just called to protect them in natural ways.  We must do so in the spirit as well.  We must be a light to others who do not know Jesus.  This is getting increasingly difficult.  What do we need to begin to think like God thinks.  God gave us something.  It’s right there in Isaiah 55.  This chapter does not end with verse 10. 

In verse 11, he tells us the point of this whole chapter.  His thoughts are higher than ours which causes his ways to be higher.  How can we learn to think his thoughts and begin to walk in his ways.  Verse 11 clearly tells us.

Isaiah 55:11 (NKJV)  So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

God gave us his Word!  His Word is not philosophy, doctrine or even philosophy.  Hebrews 4:12 tells us it is alive.  God gave us his word to change how we think not just what we think.  That is its main purpose.  In the weeks to come we will study how God’s Word does that very thing.  For now, do not accept that you must think like the world thinks.  Do not settle for the low thoughts that we learn from our culture, upbringing or education.  You can think higher thoughts and the more you do, you will begin to function in higher ways.

For Audio Messages Visit: https://anchor.fm/bill-kiefer or search Practical Wisdom from the Word of God or Bill Kiefer on Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.