Daily Affirmations - Day 3 - Where the People Are - A World of Suffering

Day 3: A world of suffering

I AM has sent me

The Lord said [to Moses], “I have indeed seen the misery of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them…So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring My people the Israelites out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:7-8, 10).

Great and mighty God, You are the God who performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted (Job 5:9, 9:10). But You are not a God who "proves Yourself" through human demands for signs (Matthew 16:1, 1 Corinthians 1:22), who caters to human appetites for showmanship, who indulges human preoccupations with "Abracadabra" sensationalism.

You often choose to work Your extraordinary ways through ordinary people. Again and again You bring about your supernatural results by way of human agency, placing Your treasure in jars of clay to show that [Your] all-surpassing power is from God and not from us (2 Corinthians 4:7). And often, the scope of Your plan is beyond immediate— beyond the limits of our vision, our imagination and our comprehension.

We see this in Your call of Moses. You could easily have loosened the bonds of Your enslaved people in any way You determined. Yet it suited Your divine plan to choose Moses, to appoint him as leader, and to engage him in a masterplan of wise, careful, active, and deliberate deliverance. And You were already there; You told Moses, I have seen... I have heard... I am concerned...I have come down.

Father, just as You directed Moses to go, You send us today into a world of suffering. For You still see all the misery, enslavement, captivity. You still hear the cries of humanity and You are concerned.

But in our times, Your assurance, I have come down to rescue... has far greater significance than Moses' limited vision and comprehension. For only much later would Moses' part in Your incredible plan culminate in the full revelation of God come down— Emmanuel, Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We, however, live in a period of human history that has recorded His advent, and has witnessed the fulfillment of His mission— a mission announced in advance in great clarity and detail:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19 - see also Isaiah 61:1-3).

And as He continues to hold open opportunity to accept the year of the Lord's favor— before the day of vengeance of our God (Isaiah 61:2), He still involves human agency in His amazing supernatural plan of grace and redemption— telling His disciples, "Go into all the world" (Mark 16:15).

Like Moses, Lord, we are Your messengers of hope. Help us to gladly go where the people are with the good news that offers freedom and release from captivity, sight for the blind, and recovery for the suffering. Show them Your favor today.

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