A New Thing

God is creative by nature and so always wants to do new things in our lives. We, on the other hand are people of habit and tradition and usually don’t adapt well to change, especially if it is out of the norm. In Exodus chapter 3 God was preparing to do something radical that had never been done in the history of the world. He was preparing to deliver a people group who had been in slavery for over 400 years. They had known nothing else but slavery for generations.

I want to look at three essential things that had to happen to prepare Moses and the children of Israel for what God was about to do.

God had to get their attention. Moses is herding sheep just as he has done for years when an angel of the Lord appears to him as a flaming fire in a bush that is not being consumed. Exodus 3:3 says “Then Moses said, "I will now turn aside and see this great sight.” For God to do something new and extraordinary in our lives, He usually has to get our attention. We are so busy running along doing our thing in life that sometimes God has to disrupt our life in order that we will turn aside and be willing to listen to Him.

God had to identify himself according to their past experience. Now that He has Moses undivided attention, God says to Moses, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Moses and the children of Israel knew all the stories of the call of God on Abraham, Isaac’s supernatural birth, and all the wonderful things God had done in their forefathers’ lives. This was the foundation of their belief system and the hope of their lives. Through Israel’s history, every time God got ready to do a new thing, He would have them review what He had already done. It is from the foundation of our past that God builds our future.

God had to reveal a new dimension of Himself to prepare them for the new thing He was going to do. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob now reveals himself to Moses and Israel as “I AM WHO I AM.” I AM the God of your forefathers, IAM the God of your present in Egypt, and I AM the God of your tomorrow.” This is crucial! In order to move into the new thing that God has for us, we must have a new revelation of God. Our past revelations cannot take us into the future. We live in crucial times when God wants to do extraordinary things, but we must turn aside from our daily routine and come to know this extraordinary God in a new way. We cannot continue to do things the way we have been doing them and expect different results.

“Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19

May God grant you a renewed vision of Himself and what He desires to do in and through you.

Andy Clark