EXODUS 4:1-5
Moses
answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say,
‘The Lord did not appear to you’?
2 Then the Lord said
to him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he replied. 3 The Lord said,
“Throw it on the ground.” Moses
threw it on the ground, and it became a snake, and he ran from it. 4 Then
the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So, Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in
his hand. 5 “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and
the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.
God uses the shepherd’s staff here for a very simple
reason.
Moses was
holding one in his hand. He says to Moses what’s that in your hand? What do you
have that God can use?
God then says to Moses, take it and throw it on the
ground…. And when he does it becomes a snake. Moses does what many of us would
do…he runs from it. God tells him to pick it up and then it turns back into a
staff.
Notice this, as long as Moses kept the staff in his
hand it was useful, but the moment he laid it down, it became something that
was useless…even harmful. When God gives you a gift, don’t ever put it down.
Every one of us has the ability to do certain things
with our hands There is great power in our hands to do good. All we need is a heart
of obedience. If we fail to use what God has given to us it can be
rendered useless.
