Get Real November 16 Devotional
November 16, 2024
EXODUS 3:6 | 6 He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
We always know God in a deep dependence on the faith of our ancestors. Our God reveals Himself to people within history, and that means we never operate on our own, in romantic independence of traditions and predecessors. Originality is almost always exaggerated and overrated.
Every word we use we have inherited, and it has come to us with connotations and denotations. We may use a word in a particular way, to express a personal perspective, but we are harnessing the past when we do, and we are participating, as late comers, in a long and indispensable conversation. We cannot frame our own religious understanding apart from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! Nor should we want to, because our God’s new actions and directions always fit into an ongoing story that includes Israel, and centers not on our own psyches, but on Jesus. Moses, who met God at the burning bush and the smoking mountain, and who was the greatest prophet and leader of the Old Testament, entered into a unique relationship with a transcendent Creator who was still the God of his ancestors.
How grateful are you to be part of a cloud of witnesses and an ongoing story?
