{"id":21416,"date":"2017-06-14T00:10:41","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T07:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=11010"},"modified":"2017-06-14T00:10:41","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T07:10:41","slug":"june-14-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/06\/14\/june-14-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"June 14, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"backgrounder: transparent url('http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/wp-content\/uploads\/June-2017.jpg'); backgrounder-size: 600px 300px; left top repeat 0 100% width: 600px; margin: 10px auto; padding: 10px 80px 10px 85px; width: 90%,;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>\u201cAt this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father\u2019s house for three months.\u201d<\/em> Acts 7:20<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Well Pleasing<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I came across this Scripture one day while having some quiet time. I couldn\u2019t help but wonder how a tiny baby could be well pleasing to God, any more than any other newborn would be. Moses was born into a sin nature, as we all are, and yet Scripture declares that at birth he was well pleasing to God. This was not earned favor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I looked up the cross-references given: Exodus 2:1-2 and Hebrews 11:23. Both say he was a \u201cbeautiful\u201d child. We surely know that he did not please God due merely to his childish good looks. Even God\u2019s own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, <em>\u201chad no beauty that we should desire Him\u201d<\/em> (Isaiah 53:2), and yet Jesus was \u201cwell pleasing\u201d to God (Matthew 3:17).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Perhaps it was that God knew Moses would have been a child who obeyed his parents, if he had been raised by them (but he wasn\u2019t\u2014he was raised by Pharaoh\u2019s daughter); this would have been well pleasing to God (Colossians 3:20).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Furthermore, Moses was well pleasing to God even though God knew the future: that Moses would be given to outbursts of anger and impatience, even murdering a man who committed an injustice. None of this changed God\u2019s mind about Moses. In fact, if anything, it may have been the very reason that God chose Moses to be used so mightily, for a weak, stuttering, fearful, argumentative, initially unwilling person who does great things in the power of God will bring God great glory, simply because no one could do what Moses eventually accomplished except by being used by God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Still, I wonder in what way was Moses well pleasing to God at birth. We can glean from 1 Peter 3:3-4. Although it is written to women, it clearly shows what God looks at. It isn\u2019t outward beauty or adorning, but rather the<em> \u201chidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Being well pleasing to God is always about the heart. <em>\u201c\u2026But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God\u201d<\/em> (Romans 2:29).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Clearly, we are not chosen by God because of our own works, righteousness or perfection, nor our appearance, brains, strength, or talents. That should be obvious when we look at the life of Moses, and so many others in the Bible. God sees a certain \u201csomething\u201d in us, something we can\u2019t see, something He has placed in us, and He uses that something to further His kingdom and bring Him glory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cOur Father, we are in awe that You chose us in spite of our flaws to do Your work on earth. May we be found willing. In Jesus\u2019 Name, Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAt this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/06\/14\/june-14-2017\/\"> [&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5zq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}