Tuesday: Our invitation
Read the Scripture and devotional either on your own or with your people (family, small group, roommates), and then come together for the discussion each day.
Exodus 3:13-16
13 But Moses protested, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?”
14 God replied to Moses, “I am who I am. Say this to the people of Israel: I am has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.
This is my eternal name,
my name to remember for all generations.
16 “Now go and call together all the elders of Israel. Tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me. He told me, “I have been watching closely, and I see how the Egyptians are treating you.
2 Corinthians 5:17-20
17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
From the very beginning, it has been God’s plan to partner with people. When He created the world, He placed Adam and Eve in the garden to continue His work. After the garden, when God started the rescue of His people, He called Abraham and Sarah to do the work with Him. That family grew into a whole nation that made a covenant with God and was called to represent Him to the world around them. When Jesus went back to the Father, He gave His Spirit to His followers so that they could continue the work that He started. When God recreates the world, we are told that humanity will reign with God forever. Partnering with humans is God’s method of working in the world.
When God came to rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, He invited Moses into the work. Yes, God was moving first, and He could do it without people, but He is seeking humans to partner with Him. God wanted Moses to represent Him both to the Israelites and to the people of Egypt. That is why God appeared in the burning bush in the desert and invited Moses onto holy ground.
God is now extending that same invitation to us. Every follower of Jesus is given the Spirit of God and invited into God’s work of remaking the world. Paul calls us “Christ’s ambassadors,” and ambassadors go to foreign lands to represent their own countries. In this case, we represent the kingdom of God.
It’s easy for us to count ourselves out. I can’t be an ambassador; I don’t know enough. I can’t answer God’s invitation to His work because of my past. We think we are not qualified to be part of God’s work so we decline our invitation. But Moses was not a stellar candidate to partner with God either. He was raised in a foreign context, in the courts of the Pharaoh. When he had been stirred to notice and advocate for his people, he murdered an Egyptian and had to flee to preserve his life. He had spent the last forty years hidden in the desert, tending a flock of sheep.
Moses’ example shows us that there is room in God’s story for us as well. Whatever we think separates us from partnering with God is done away with by the life and sacrifice of Jesus. Christ has brought us back to God and we are given the work of bringing others to God. We are invited and commissioned to continue the work of God. Our relationship with God is the basis of our representation of Him. We know God and invite others to know Him as well.
During revival week, it would not be uncommon for God to impress an invitation on your heart. That invitation is not a mistake. God didn’t reach out to the wrong person. He didn’t forget some information about you. He knows you and He’s inviting you in.
Discussion Questions
How can you own your invitation to participate?
Practice speaking truth over each other about where each person is participating in God’s work.
For your kids: How can you work with God tomorrow?
Prayer Prompt
Isaiah 6 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Is God revealing a place He is inviting you into? If so, will you say “yes”? If not, ask Him to reveal your invitation.