V1-3 – Moses is out and about his work. He goes to Sinai, the mountain of God. And Here, God first gets his attention through something supernatural, something unique, something He had not seen before — a burning bush that was not burning. Although Moses was about to encounter the living mighty God, He was not aware and was just about his own activities. But God captures his attention.
I believe that this is what the Lord does in our lives. He captures our attention when we are just about our daily activities and lives and speaks to us. The Lord can use very many ways to capture our attention…. He can use a literal burning bush, He can use a sermon, a song, He can allow some difficulty in our lives so that we run to Him, etc.
This is one of the most unique things about our God: In all times, God first comes and gets our attention and He reveals himself to us. We did not first love Him, He first loved us and reached out to us, revealing his great majesty to us.
1 John 4:19 NKJV: We love Him because He first loved us.
V4 – Moses moves to the burning bush out of curiosity. He is of course still not aware that the Lord is about to meet Him. God’s action to get Moses’ attention has of course worked and now He can speak to Moses. The Lord calls out.
Dear friend, does God get your attention? Your curiosity? Are you eager enough to learn/hear from Him?
It would be so sad if Moses never gave much thought to the burning bush or if it never got his proper attention. I feel that sometimes our hearts are so hard such that even when God is calling and wants to meet with us, we never give him the attention. And so, we become resistant to Him and never experience Him.
Give some thought to this.
V5 – God tells Moses that He is on holy ground– He should not go any closer and should take off his sandals.
This is a warning to us about how we come before God. When you are in his presence, you are on holy ground. We have to come in awe because while it’s true that we are in the presence of God, our father, we are also before the everlasting God, the ruler and creator of all things. It is He who gives us life and we are sustained in Him. We therefore cannot come before God carelessly, casually…. We must take off our sandals. Taking off our sandals means that our hearts have to come with the right posture, broken and humble, acknowledging his mighty power. Yet when we come, we also come with admiration of Him who loves us and saves us.
This is who we are coming to:
Hebrews 12:18-29 NIV: But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
And this is what Jesus tells us:
Luke 12:5 NLT: But I’ll tell you whom to fear. Fear God, who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell. Yes, he’s the one to fear.
V6 – The Lord God introduces himself to Moses. He is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He says “I am.” God is God of the living.
Jesus later in the book of Matthew comes to speak about the resurrection by referring to this portion in exodus:
Mark 12:26-27 NIV: Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”
The Living Bible (TLB) version puts it this way:
Mark 12:26-27 TLB: But now as to whether there will be a resurrection—have you never read in the book of Exodus about Moses and the burning bush? God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and I am the God of Isaac, and I am the God of Jacob.’ “God was telling Moses that these men, though dead for hundreds of years, were still very much alive, for he would not have said, ‘I am the God’ of those who don’t exist! You have made a serious error.”
God is God of those who are alive: alive in Him. Who are those who are alive in Him? The ones who walk and live in Him. These are the people who walk humbly with their God and who have accepted Jesus and their savior AND their Lord (master). He is therefore God of those who obey Him and accept to be led of Him. He is not the God of those who are not submitted to Him. When there are other things that have more priority and which give you satisfaction other than God, then those things are your god, and you should not dare say the Yahweh is your God. If there is any other than you enjoy more than Him, then you are in Idolatry. Yahweh is your God if you obey his word.
And dear friend, this is a command directly from God:
Exodus 20:2-6 NASB – I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself [c]an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them nor serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, inflicting the punishment of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing favor to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
(Father, forgive me for all these many times I forget that you alone must be God in my life. You alone must be my satisfaction and enjoyment. You alone must I obey– Help me to obey you Oh God. Let me not lured away by the desires and pleasures of this world. May my worries and concerns for this life not cause me to forget who you are. Let me not be led astray by pursuits in my life but let my life be wholly focused on you: you alone must be the one I pursue. For in you alone is life, satisfaction, peace, comfort, and sustenance. In Jesus name, Amen.)