13 Oct Fortify Your Family – Your First Ministry

Fortify Your Family – Your First Ministry

Did you know that God actually wanted to kill Moses? It was related to His family…

 

Yup, it’s true!

 

When I found out about it I couldn’t believe it myself. So let me bring in some scripture to help us out.

 

In Exodus 4 we find Moses and his family on their way back to Egypt with Aaron. This is right after God appeared to Moses in a burning bush, shows Moses his staff can turn into a snake, God shows Moses his hand turns to leprosy and then back to normal. Aaron even shows up and agrees to do all the talking to God’s people and Pharoah! God has literally given everything Moses needs to fulfill his assignment, and yet he doubts and is scared. 

 

So Moses and his family are on their way back to Egypt to set the Israelites free and start fulfilling Gods calling for Moses. Check this out:

 

24 Now it happened at the lodging place, that the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him [making him deathly ill because he had not circumcised one of his sons]. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint knife and cut off the foreskin of her son and threw it at Moses’ feet, and said, Indeed you are a husband of blood to me! 26 So He let Moses alone [to recover]. At that time Zipporah said, You are a husband of blood—because of the circumcision. – Exodus 4:24-26

 

I want to remind us that our God is one of love, order, honor, and planning. So this seems kind of weird right?

 

Why would God seek to kill Moses after all these signs wonders and instructions?

 

This is a perfect example of why you must read the bible to understand the context and history otherwise God looks murder hungry for Moses, and that’s obviously not the God we know.

 

Genesis 17:9-14

9 Further, God said to Abraham, “As for you [your part of the agreement], you shall keep and faithfully obey [the terms of] My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 10 This is [the sign of] My covenant, which you shall keep and faithfully obey, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be the sign (symbol, memorial) of the covenant between Me and you. 12 Every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, [including] a servant whether born in the house or one who is purchased with [your] money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. 13 A servant who is born in your house or one who is purchased with your money must be circumcised; and [the sign of] My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14 And the male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

 

Moses was about to try and lead Israel when he neglected to lead his own family. Moses was out of integrity and out of covenant, which was unacceptable to God.

 

If we are called to serve the church, lead a ministry, or build with God the first and most important ministry God has called us to is YOUR FAMILY.

 

Moses had failed to keep His family’s covenant with God! Moses was a descendant of Abraham and God made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants. So, at this moment, God is actually keeping his end of the covenant via verse 14, and that is why he sought to kill Moses. Up until then, God was empowering and leading Moses into his calling. The way I see it is that God loved Moses’s family so much that it wouldn’t really be a success story or in line with the character of God if Moses lead the Israelites, but his family fell apart. God is a family man, and we should be too.

 

Zipporah, Moses’s wife and a mighty woman of God took action that brought repentance and completion of Moses’s end of the covenant. What is interesting is that Zipporah had a knowing or discernment about what needed to be done. She was a Midianite whose culture was not to circumcise their infants. What a beautiful and mighty woman who fought for her family when her husband was failing; thus, Moses was spared through the repentant actions of Zipporah made on Moses’s behalf.

 

God would rather have Moses dead than be out of integrity with leading his family. I hope this served Moses as a wake-up call.

 

James 3 warns us that, “ Not many [of you] should become teachers [serving in an official teaching capacity], my brothers and sisters, for you know that we [who are teachers] will be judged by a higher standard [because we have assumed greater accountability and more condemnation if we teach incorrectly].”

 

Key Takeaway:

I doubt that this circumcision issue is relevant to you today but… I wonder, what do you need to cut out of your life, to come back into alignment with leading your family in a way that is pleasing to God?

 

Leaders, today I want to issue you a 3-step challenge to realign & Fortify your Family Leadership

 

1. REPENT – Do we need to repent? Is our family our first ministry and if so, are we doing a good job? If your family is first but you’re blowing it what good is that? I want to encourage you to repent and take action like Zipporah to come back into alignment with leading your family.
   
   Does our family need an apology or need to see our repentance?
   
   (In my life the sin was seeking money to provide for the family instead of seeking God and being fully present with my family.)
2. RENOUNCE AND REJECT – I’ve found the greatest enemy in this area is 2 part. I’ve found that when this is out of order that I am actually in alignment and in agreement with “THE SPIRIT OF SLAVERY.”
   
   Here is what it looks like for me, “Lord, I repent for not leading and putting my family first…. I’ve been in agreement with the ways of the world, the culture, and the spirit of slavery, and I didn’t even know it. Thank you for waking me up. I Renounce and reject the spirit of slavery, its fruit, and all the like spirits…
3. RECOMMIT – Does our family and our God need us to recommit? Do we need a moment, a pause, to say God and family I’m recommitting to leading our family and making us my #1 priority? When we recommit, what does it look like? How will we be different now?

Take this challenge in 2 steps – Create Awareness and Pray

• Take a moment to write down what you are recommitting to and how you will show up. Get specific! What are you recommitting, how will you show up, and what actions will you take?

• Pray this prayer:

“Lord, I repent for not leading and putting my family first (repent of anything else that comes to mind)…. I’ve been in agreement with the ways of the world, the culture, and the spirit of slavery, and I didn’t even know it. Thank you for waking me up. I Renounce and reject the spirit of slavery, its fruit, and all the like spirits. I reject you and command every spirit out of me and out of my and my family’s life right now in the mighty name of JESUS!

 

(I would pray this with authority in your voice and mind and then either end or continue to pray as the Spirit leads you).

 

I would encourage you to take this seriously now that you have this information. James gives us an encouraging warning in verses 1:23-24 not to be like this man, “For if anyone only listens to the word without obeying it, he is like a man who looks very carefully at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he immediately forgets what he looked like.”

 

God bless you as you Fortify Your Family

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Ron Gelok III, MBA

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