Word of Encouragement (07/19/2022)

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD, saying, “I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name....” (Ex. 15:1-3)

After praising God for drowning the Egyptian chariots in the Red Sea, Moses says, “...this is my God, and I will praise him....” I’m sure you have seen something similar. An athlete wins a gold medal at the Olympics, and the father stands up from his seat and yells, “That’s my son! That’s my son!” When a father does that, he is not trying to steal the limelight from his son, is it? Rather, he wants the whole world to know how proud he is of his son—he is so proud that he cannot keep quiet. And yes, he is proud that this victorious athlete is related to him: he cannot believe that this amazing athlete is his son! So, having witnessed God’s wondrous work of deliverance, Moses is proud to exclaim, “This is my God! This is my God!” He cannot believe what God has done to deliver him and the people of Israel. And he cannot believe how blessed he is that this amazing God is his God!

This didn’t mean that God is only the God of Moses and no one else’s. We are told that “Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD....” Each of the Israelites claimed that the LORD was “my God”! Not only that, Moses went on to say, “...my father’s God, and I will exalt him.” This meant that his father also called upon God as “my God”. So then, when Moses addressed God as “my God,” he didn’t mean that he and only he had this exclusive relationship with the LORD. Rather, he was speaking of the intimacy he felt with God—the intimacy God allowed the people of Israel to experience through this amazing deed He performed to deliver them from the Egyptians.

It would be well for us to remember this wonderful dual truth as well. Each of us can call God “my God” while acknowledging that He is also “my father’s God” and “my brother’s and sister’s God”. He is the God of all those who call upon the name of Jesus Christ. We belong to the church of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. We can sing our praise together to the Lord because He has done a marvelous work of saving us from sin, death, Satan, and hell through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We do not live this Christian life alone. We belong to the community of the covenant of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. We can support and encourage one another in this spiritual journey we are on, this spiritual battle we are fighting. Our faith is renewed and strengthened when we gather and confess “one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:4-6).

But even when we are gathered in a great assembly, we are not just a number to God. Each of us in the assembly can claim God as “my God” because of the individual attention and care He gives to each of us. Because He is God, He can love us all and still give each of us his “full attention,” as it were. We don’t have to feel lost in the crowd. Even when we are all together, He can hear the heartbeat of each of us. Even when we sing together, He can hear each of our voices.

Of course, if we can have this intimate relationship with God, who is exalted and holy, it is only because we are united to the only begotten Son of God, who alone has the right to call God, “my God”—indeed, “my Father”! In Jesus Christ, that is what we are allowed to do—to call God “our Father in heaven” and “my God”. How blessed we are! This intimacy is already ours, objectively speaking, simply by our union with Christ through faith. But it is one thing to have this intimacy and another to experience this intimacy. The former is freely given; the latter must be sought by faith and time and effort as we trust in God’s word and rely on the Holy Spirit. Are you experiencing this intimacy with God so your heart is thrilled to call God “my God”? Don’t you think it is worthy of your time and effort?

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