Excuse or Excel – Part I
"But Lord, Who am I…."
Exodus 3rd Chapter
9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the
children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith
the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now therefore, and
I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the
children of Israel out of Egypt. 11 And Moses said unto
God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the
children of Israel out of Egypt? 12 And he said,
Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have
sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve
God upon this mountain.
While I was in the U.S. Army, we
were taught the maximum effective range of weapons. This was done so that we
would know how far or better yet, how close we needed to be to an enemy to
"take him out" with that particular weapon. So let’s say a weapon had
a maximum range of 10,000 meters, but a maximum "effective" range of
3000 meters. For us to do serious damage to the enemy and take him out, we
would have to be within 3000 meters of him. Therefore, in a combat situation,
knowing the maximum effective range of a weapon is vital to success.
Another thing we were taught in the
military was the maximum effective range of an excuse, and here it is: ZERO
miles, meters, feet, inches and centimeters. In other words, you can’t take out
the enemy with an excuse. You can’t win the war with an excuse. And you
definitely can not excel with an excuse.
This week we start a new series by
looking at the satanic device called an excuse. Spiritually speaking, one
purpose of an excuse is to keep us comforting our flesh and not walking in
faith. As long as we can sit back on that spiritual lazy-boy and be saved, many
of us would. But come time to jump into the fire, many of us would not. At this
point, we don’t want to know the maximum "effective" range of our
spiritual weapons; instead, we would rather know just the maximum range so that
we can fire from the house and not the "hotspot." Moses fell into
this category a number of times.
In the 9th verse the Lord
states to Moses that He has heard the cry of his children and has seen their
oppression. Now we should know that the Lord is not going to just sit by after
all of this. He is ready to do something and send somebody. So he says to
Moses, "I will send thee" (10th). Some of the scariest
words to most Christians from the Lord are "I will send thee." As
soon as we hear this, guess what the enemy will give us? — Excuses!!
However, what we must remember is that our God is a God of purpose. Everything
He does has a reason behind it. So as He assigns you a project, remember it has
purpose, and with that purpose He will give the provision to make it come to
pass.
This was definitely the case
concerning Moses. Right after He told Moses, "I will send thee,"
Moses replied, "Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should
bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" Now let’s really get
into this statement and try to see ourselves here. One thing Moses did not say
to the Lord was this: "Who are you that you should send me to
Pharaoh?" Maaaaannnnnnnn Looka’ Here!!! (Excuse my English). I don’t even
want to think of what would have happened if Moses would have said that. But he
did not because he knew that the Lord had the "goods" to do the job.
So what was the problem? — The Excuse! That’s it. There was no jail
to break out of or no legal red tape to go through. There wasn’t even a W-4 to
fill out for all the gold, silver and jewelry the Israelites would walk out of
Egypt with. There was only the excuse of Moses that was hindering Project
Exodus.
So what did the Lord do? He gave Moses
two things: A promise and A prophesy. First the Lord promised him, "I will
be with thee (12th)." That should have sealed the deal right
then. Moses should have packed his bags and been off. But if that wasn’t
enough, the Lord gave Moses a prophetic statement, "and this shall be a
token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people
out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain" (12th).
The Lord told Moses the end before the beginning. The Lord told Moses that his
venture would be a successful one and that he and the Israelites would worship
Him after they came out.
This is the same as with our
personal walk with the Lord. Without a shadow of doubt He has shown us visions
of a prosperous business, marriage or family. He has even told us that we are
healed, whole and complete mentally, spiritually and financially. He has given
us imaginations of things our friends may feel are unattainable for us. But
most of all, He has told us, "I will be with you." Honey, as long as
we’ve got the Lord in our "boat," there is no shore that is
unattainable, no mountain unclimbable, no goal unreachable and no door
inaccessible. The only thing that can really stop us is an excuse, and simply
put — now we have none!