Bryan Richardson – Page 50 – The Everyday Prayer

Score

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 20:1-17 (day three)

“And God spoke all these words.” These Ten Commandments call us to a whole life; they cannot be separated from one another and mean the same thing that they mean together. The man who will not observe the Sabbath will surely believe that the world will not function without him, and therefore will place himself as a god before the Lord. The one who refuses to honor his parents will desecrate family ties and is therefore only a step away from destroying another family through adultery. God spoke “all these words” not some of these words. Separated, they just become an occasion for measuring our lives up against others, and when we do that, we covet everything our neighbor has. God calls us to a life, not to a score.

Almighty

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 19:1-12, 16-22 (day three)

“Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death.” Here are three things that are true: First, God–and only God–has the original authority to determine who may continue to live; second, human beings will always–always–harm one another when they act according to what is right in their own eyes; and third, we will know God’s goodness when–and only when–we believe his words.

Deal

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 15:22-27; 16:1-18 (day three)

“You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.” Perhaps there were times that the Israelites had legitimate complaints against Moses. He was not perfect, after all. But this was not one of those times. The Israelites weren’t chafing against some plan that Moses had drawn up; they were calling into question the total resettlement initiative—and that was God’s project. The Lord was breaking them free from not only forced servitude, but from the entire Egyptian worldview. He was forming them into a people who could think straight. Their grumbling gave evidence that they had not grasped that radical reality. But the words Moses spoke to them called their attention to God’s activity in the midst of these circumstances. The time will come when we all have to deal with God—and Moses tells them that time is now.

Do

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 14:1-4, 10-31; 15:1-2, 20-21 (day three)

“Why are you crying out to me?” Throughout the Bible, we read that God leads men to become the kind of people who do what God would do if God were the one living their lives. God will do many things for us, but there are things he will most certainly not do for us. If they are to get done, we must do them. We see this kind of leadership in the life of Jesus: “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”; “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers”; “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing.” The Lord is our redeemer, not our enabler. He intends that our obedience grow us up, not perpetuate our inabilities. This is hard, but it is possible: Be doers, not hearers only.

Pillar

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 12:1-14, 24-27, 13:8-9 (day three)

“This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead…” You can lead a people out of 430 years of forced servitude, but they forget in the morning. You can stumble through words of wisdom you didn’t know you had in you to guide a foolish child, but you won’t remember that saving grace next week. God knows that we’re prone to such lapses in our thinking and in our living. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,” says one of the most honest hymns ever written. When we forget God’s provision, we get in trouble. God says to remind one another: Set up a pillar, make a feast, commemorate a day so you will not forget. How are you marking God’s saving activity in your life?

Identity

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day three)

“I am the LORD.” This little phrase of self-identification frames much of what God says to Moses at the outset of the confrontation with Pharaoh. The question of identity was an important one to Pharaoh. When Moses demanded freedom, Pharaoh wanted to know the identity of the one behind the demand. Pharaoh placed no credence in the name of the LORD, but God’s repetition of his identity to Moses was more about shaping a people called by his name than introducing himself to Pharaoh. Israel’s Egyptian masters resisted the LORD’s identity, and they would die by that name. The LORD made short work of that. The longer question was this: Would the children of Israel live by that name? And so the question comes to us.

Action

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 3:1-14; 4:1-15 (day three)

“I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” If the universe had a beginning, something other than the universe must necessarily exist in order to have made that beginning possible. And that “something other” must necessarily have the ability to decide to initiate the universe. That ability is called will, which means the “something other” is a personal being. If you’ll believe it, the Bible reveals the personal being is God. There is nothing that inherently prevents the spiritual realm from continuing to interact with the physical realm. God interacts with the world. Regularly. Moses saw it, paid attention, acted, led a people out of slavery, and built a nation from which came Jesus Christ. God acts in history now. The Bible tells you specifically how this goes. So read. Heed. Act accordingly.

Big

Re: Verse reading—Exodus 1:8-2:10 (day three)
“The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do.”

The saving of the lives of babies in the midst of a campaign of genocide was dangerous work in the face of the absolute power of the Pharaoh. But these women came to the task with courage and not a little savvy. Did they make it up as they went? They might have felt like it at times. Here’s what we can know: Given the existence of two powers—God and Pharaoh—one of the powers had to give, and the midwives understood that it wouldn’t be God. With that large thought firmly in mind, they proceeded to work out what that would mean for how they lived from day to day. We would do well to think as big.

You

Re: Verse reading–John 21:1-25 (day three)

“Lord, what about him?” We’ll often pursue anything except the hard work of self-leadership. Self-leadership understood in light of our apprenticeship to Jesus is the act of ruthless moral inventory, confession of sin, and training in righteousness. In Psalm 139, we see the proper progression of thought towards self-leadership: “I hate those who hate you, Lord…I count them my enemies.” And then, “Search me, God…know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me…” [Emphasis added] This is a move from external observation to internal yielding. Peter moves in the exact opposite direction. After discussing the need to surrender his spirit to Jesus’s lordship, Peter moves to the far less painful topic of other people. Jesus rebukes him, as he will all of us: You. Follow. Me.

Knowledge

Re: Verse reading–John 20:10-31 (day three)

“These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” The truth claim that John presents is not one that is testable with litmus paper. We don’t have a test tube for ascertaining the existence of liberty or love or patience—or the existence of historical events like the Civil War or the resurrection of Jesus—and yet we can know the reality of these ideas and occurrences through trustworthy witnesses who have established their credibility in the community of men and women. John says to us: “I saw these things. Hear me out. Listen to what I learned about the person of Jesus—his character, mind, and mission.” Get to know Jesus through these witnesses. By their record you can come to faith. And then you can come to knowledge.