TRUST IS THE BEGINNING OF CONFIDENCE

| Moses was a mighty man, who made his mistakes just like you and I, but he learned. Life itself is a good lesson, and Moses had to learn to trust the Lord to gain confidence. It was not in what he could do, but who God is. It is easy to gain confidence in what we do because we become specialized in what we do. We can have faith for money, but no faith for healing. Every one has a specialty in God. When our specialty fails, what happens then? All of us have strength where we have experienced God, but we have no confidence and no power of God revealed in us.

God said to Moses,” I am going to teach you confidence, but first you are going to learn to trust me.” Remember how God called out Moses. Moses had no confidence. He tried being the savior to the Hebrews earlier as he thought he could deliver them by the strength of his own hands. In all the power and confidence he learned in the house of Pharaoh, he went out and slay an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave.

In The Church we see a similar pattern. We despise experience, take the new wine, and do things that we should never do. Novices cannot do the impossible because they have not had the confidence in God. They have to go through a process of being stripped.

In Exodus 4 God appears miraculously to Moses, and Moses is pleading with God, asking Him what to do if Pharaoh does not listen to what God has told him to say. Moses is questioning, “but who am I that Pharaoh will listen to me?” We say the same, “After all Lord, I am just a housewife, a girl, a woman, a common laborer? Suppose it is not God, suppose they do not believe it is your voice, or suppose it is just my imagination?”

Exodus 4:2-5, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘What is that in your hand?’ And he said, ‘A rod.’ And He said, ‘Cast it on the ground.’ So he cast the rod on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. Then the Lord said, ‘Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.’ (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand), ‘that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.’”

Moses had to have the experience so that the people would believe that God is God. They never saw the serpent. They never saw the transformation from the rod to the serpent, but Moses had to have the fear of the Lord to have the confidence to stand before Pharaoh to see great things happen.

If you tell me that God does great things in your life and you have no confidence, I probably will not believe you because you are too insecure. I know God loves you, but I will not believe you when you say God can do the impossible. I know today you might want to do the impossible, but tomorrow you may be inconsistent when you feel insecure, and you will not be able to do it.

Why did Moses have to throw the rod down and have that experience? That rod was his confidence. He took that rod as he left Egypt and he became a shepherd. With that rod, he had experience in his life as he came to the Midianites and found favor with Zipporah’s father. He found favor, as he sat among the young maidens and was given a choice to choose one that suited him to bring forth the seed that God would give him. As he stood with that rod, in which he had found confidence, against Pharaoh and even his own people that forsook him, he found the confidence to know at least he was a good shepherd.

Some of us fail at many things, but we find something that we can do well. I know God can use all of these things, but where is His greatness? Greatness is missing in the body of Christ. Everything is mediocre and too easily satisfied.

Why did the rod turn into a snake? God knew that He would use the rod. The same rod split the Red Sea. The rod brought forth the staff of plagues. It was the rod that would “bud” to prove whether Aaron was called as a priest. It was the rod that God gave him in his hands, and He knew that if Moses would develop confidence in the rod, it would become a serpent and bite him. That is why some of us are bitten and poisoned. We lose our trust and confidence in God and put it in men. We allow them to give to us that which we cannot press through, for ourselves.

It is very dangerous when we let men and women give to us what we cannot press through by ourselves, to satisfy that which is needed, and to come into the greatness and power of God. “Come on Moses, pick it up by the tail.” Do not think for one moment that the serpent lay there like a rod. It turned into a serpent, hissing, ready to bite. It was ready to slay Moses and Moses caught the fear of the Lord. Remember when Joshua was ready to go into the battle, the Lord stood there and Joshua said, “Are you my friend or my enemy?” And what did the Lord say, “No, I am the captain of the host.” What does that mean? The Lord cannot be your friend and enemy at the same time. However, he will be your enemy if you do not obey Him.

Moses picked the serpent up, not by the head, but by the tail. Trust! Do you ever pick up your snake by the tail? Remember what the serpent did? It beguiled, it ate. Did you pick up that thing by the tail, which flatters you and tempts you and I to have confidence in things, instead of having confidence in the Lord? Can you pick it up by the tail to trust Him that He will not despise you or leave you because you know it is better to trust the Lord than to have confidence in men? Moses did.

Trust is the beginning of confidence. What is the definition of confidence? It is to be free from doubt and fear? Do we know how many people pray to overcome doubt and fear? We will never overcome fear until we take that snake by the tail to have confidence in God as we learn to trust in Him.

In His Love,
      Sigi

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