Day 58 – Moses holds up his Arms

Readings

  • Exodus 17:8-15
  • Deuteronomy 25:17-19
  • 1 Timothy 2:8

Prayer

Pray… for someone you know, for whatever you know they need prayer for. Don’t tell them you’re praying for them.

Day 58 – Moses holds up his Arms

Israel’s Warfare and Moses’ Prayer

Start today’s reading with the prayer time if you don’t normally. Hold your hand up to God whilst you’re doing it – you’ll see why later! Today’s passage has a prayer focus, so if you skip the daily prayer (and I hope you don’t!) then make a special point of it today.

 

The readings today amount to only 11 verses. Use the extra time to focus on the questions. You should still be dedicating 20-25 minutes to each day’s readings, questions and notes, even if you can fly through the verses in 60 seconds.

 

  • As the Israelites march onward towards the Promised Land, they continue to face challenges. They’ve come through the Red Sea, and the problem of food and water, and today we read that they are attacked by a group of people called the Amalek (or Amalekites). The Amalekites were the descendants of Amalek, the grandson of Esau, brother of Jacob. You can see his name on the timeline I posted on day 35. The Amalekites hated the Israelites with a passion – and indeed we’ll read several (difficult) passages in the Old Testament relating to how the Israelites had to deal with them.
  • Why was Joshua a good person to lead the people in the battle in today’s passage in Exodus? From your memory, do you know why he would need this experience in the future?
  • What was Moses’ role in this passage? Could the people have won their battle without God working through what Moses did?
  • God worked through Moses’ weakness several times, didn’t He? List in your journal a couple of things that Moses needed help with (in his whole life, I mean, rather than just this passage). Can we win the battle against sin on our own? Who do we need help from?
  • The whole point of Moses putting his hands up was in an appeal to God for help – without Him, nothing is possible! Think about how prayer is pictured in the Exodus passage. What does today’s New Testament passage say about it?
  • List the people that you think are praying for you on a regular basis. Does knowing this encourage you, even though you don’t often hear their prayers?
  • We’re reminded today that it’s important to not always be alone in prayer (prayer alone is great, of course, but it’s also communal). The mere fact that we sometimes come together in joint worship will be building up the faith of those around us. Could you perhaps consider going to the next prayer gathering for this reason?
  • Have you ever been “lifted up” with prayer? What I mean is, has anyone prayed with you specifically about something, and you have been helped or encouraged either through the actual act of having someone pray for you, or because the prayer was answered?
  • What does God say will happen to Amalek someday (look in Deuteronomy). We’ll read about how this happens in a couple of months. Do you trust that God will deal with your “enemies” in His own time?

 

What’s your prayer life like? Does it need a kickstart?

 

Moses’ prayer was out of sight of the people actually fighting the battle, wasn’t it? But this unseen prayer was the basis for the successful battle. So it was for Jesus. Prior to his victory on the cross, he spent many hours praying in a garden. The wonderful message of the gospel is that Jesus continues – to this day and beyond – to pray, interceding to His Father on our behalf. His prayers, along with ours, are sustaining us during our spiritual battle (which you can read more about in Ephesians 6:10-20 if you’d like).


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