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Have you ever woken up in the morning and felt like, "Why do I bother to get up? There is nothing to look forward to today or this week?" Have you ever taken a hard look at your own life only to recognize that you don't really know where you are headed in your life? That you have been going around in circles or has simply been spinning your wheels?
Perhaps you have look at those who have an enthusiasm for life and secretly envy their certainty, their clear direction in life? Do you wish that you could live a meaningful, purposeful life? A life that you know makes a difference.
In this article, we will discover how our lives can be filled with a clear burning purpose. A purpose that will be worth living for. A purpose that will define our lives. A purpose that is of God! We will unpack Exodus 3:10-22 to discover how Moses began to be burnt by a divine purpose and apply it to ourselves.
BURNING WITH A DIVINE CALL
The sense of divine purpose comes firstly from having of divine call upon one's life. A sense that God Himself has called us specifically. In Exodus 3:10-15 we discover 3 key components that contribute towards a deep sense of a divine call.
Divine selection
Exodus 3:10–11 (NIV) 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
God made it absolutely clear. God had specifically chosen Moses. Why is that important? Because that became a stirring motivation in Moses' life. That he has been called of God.
How can being selected and sent mean so much to us? Imagine if a Sunday school kid that you hardly knew, selected us, and sent us. "You go and get my teddy bear from the room!" It will mean very little to us. We would not be motivated to respond. But if Prime Minister of Australia personally selected us and sent us on a special mission to represent him. Or someone you love, admire and respect. Surely, you would respond with much more enthusiasm.
How much more, when God chooses us specifically to represent Him or to fulfil a special commission. Would you go, “Wow, God chose me!” In fact, God already has. Jesus declared in John 15:16 (NIV) You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.
God chooses us to a mission that is line with what He has designed us to be and do.
On a deeper level, we may realise that God never chooses randomly. In fact, because God is our Maker and all-wise, God chooses us to a mission that is line with what He has designed us to be and do. During my Engineering PhD, I developed a numerical modelling software which was designed to simulate multiple fractures propagating in certain types of materials. I fully understood its capabilities and limitations. Hence, I would only apply it for the purposes it was designed for. To use it in other situations would result in nonsensical results or possibly crash the software.
Once we grasp the fact that God our Maker has called us according to who we were meant to be, we realise that God's call is about our destiny! Our life purpose! What we were meant to be or do. That is why God's selection can be such a life-changing, life-long motivation of our life! For the Apostle Paul, this became a defining motivation for his life-long ministry - that God called specifically to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles and Jews. Acts 9:15 (NIV) But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.”
In the same way, I knew that Lai Ling and I have been sent by God to Brisbane to establish and develop Hope Church as an Antioch church. Do you have a sense of God selecting you for a purpose? Do you realise that God has already chosen you to bear His fruits?
Divine authorisation
Exodus 3:12 (NIV) And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”
Not only was Moses chosen to be sent, but God Himself backs it up by providing His authorisation. The sense of divine call increases another notch when there is a sense of God's stamp of authorisation. For sending will not amount to much if there was no accompanying authorisation. Imagine a company director sending someone to represent him at a Board meeting but tells him that he has no authority to do anything! This representative would be little more than a secretary taking notes.
For the person sent to properly represent, they must be given authority to act on behalf of the sender. In fact, the word "send" is the Heb "shalach". From this is derived the Jewish legal concept of "shaliach", who is a legally authorised representative. An old Jewish legal maxim puts it this way, "the-one-whom-a-man-sends is like the man himself."
God never sends us on His mission without accompanying authorisation.
God never sends us on His mission without accompanying authorisation. Jesus has sent us into the world to impact it with the Good News and through good works. To make disciples and plant churches. Jesus assures us that He backs us up fully! Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV) 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Have you experienced God’s authorisation?
Divine representation
Exodus 3:13–15 (NIV) 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.
Moses struggled to explain who he was representing so he asked God for His name. In ancient times, it was known that deities would have a unique special name to represent its authority. God gave His name as "I AM WHO I AM". What an odd name. Actually, through His name, God gave to Moses a revelation of His nature. "I am who I am" speaks of God eternal who is forever "am". Whose very nature is not derived from anything. God exists. God who has been, is and will be forever.
Some scholars consider this the secret name of God. It was the first and only revelation of God's name in the Old Testament. This name was considered so sacred later on in Jewish history that no one was allowed to pronounce the name of God except the high priest once a year. The anglicised name is spelt YHWH and pronounced Yahweh. Note that in Hebrew, there are no vowels.
Jesus used the name of God, "I AM" and applied it to Himself. John 8:58-59 (NIV) 58 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. It was for that reason the religious leaders condemned Jesus for blasphemy.
Moses was given a deep revelation of who God is. The giving of one's special name has special significance. It usually reveals a special relationship between the sender and one sent. We need to know who sent us so that we may adequately represent him. In the Great Commission of Matt 28:18-20 it is clear that Jesus sent us to go forth as His representatives. Indeed, the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:20 (NIV) We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
When there is a sense of God selecting us for His mission, of His authorisation and to represent Him - it helps brings about a burning conviction of God's call upon our lives.
When there is a sense of God selecting us for His mission, of His authorisation and to represent Him - it helps brings about a burning conviction of God's call upon our lives.
BURNING WITH DIVINE URGENCY
Exodus 3:16 (NIV) 16 “Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.
Essentially God instructed Moses to go and to go immediately! The Kairos (or divine moment) timing of God was now, God made it clear that he had heard the cry of the Israelites and now was the season to fulfil his promise of deliverance. ‘Go’ is a verb that carries an urgency to act upon God’s instruction. God was commanding Moses to go immediately. The matter was urgent to God.
When there is urgency to the call it usually heightens one's sense of purpose. Not only is the mission important, but it is also so important and so urgent that one is compelled to act immediately. When God speaks clearly into our hearts, it can burn in our hearts so strongly that we cannot let it lie. Jeremiah 20:9 (NIV) …his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.
Belle Wolter, one of our key leaders had this testimony. When I first got saved, I used to work as a lowly admin assistant in a prestigious law firm. After a couple of weeks of becoming a Christian, I had started a prayer meeting, regularly gathering in the senior solicitor’s office and I was leading lawyers and even a senior head partner in prayer. On the remaining lunch times I helped feed a homeless guy and prayed for the sick. By the end of my time there, my boss and the senior Partners noticed a difference in my work as well. This all because I had fire burning in my heart to see the lost saved. No one taught me to do this it just seemed the natural thing to do; I could not help but serve God. Eventually Belle and her husband became missionaries in Africa.
Sometimes God will require us to wait upon him but on this occasion, God was prompting Moses to act immediately without delay. We have had similar experiences. When we first started the church, it was challenging to reach out to various people because we hardly knew anyone in Brisbane. One day God inspired Lai Ling to apply to be involved in a host scheme. We were given a name of a University of Queensland overseas student but when we called the address, we discovered that he had gone home overseas for holidays. Some weeks later the Holy Spirit prompted Lai Ling that we should visit his rental place immediately. As in those days there were no mobiles phones yet hence it was not possible to try to contact him in other ways. We went to his home that evening and he was there! He had just returned from holidays and was planning to move out the next day. We would have missed him, if we did not come at that time. He later joined the church and eventually became one of our senior leaders.
We must learn to be quick to obey. Procrastination is a sign that we do not appreciate God's timing.
We must learn to be quick to obey. Procrastination is a sign that we do not appreciate God's timing. In other words, we pride ourselves in our own sense of timing. Let us instead resonate with God's urgency in our hearts. When God’s purpose starts to burn in our hearts, it is often accompanied by a burning urgency as well.
CONCLUSION
In Part 1, we learned about how God’s divine call can occur in our lives and lead to a burning sense of urgency to carry it out. In Part 2, we examine why we need to heed the divine instructions and why we need the divine assurances as we journey into our destiny.
Copyright©️2023 by Wilson Lim. All rights reserved. Materials are free to be distributed in whole or part as long as proper acknowledgement is given to the author and not sold for profit.
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