We left off on the last one talking about obedience, not sacrifice. So um he says, uh I, I think of what I said was God says, don't tell me how much you appreciate what I do for you. Show me by doing what I tell you to do. He's like a father where you mess up and you go to him and you say, I'm sorry
, I'm sorry for what I did. And he said, he says, don't be sorry, just don't do it again. That's what he wants from us because he knows he knows what's best and he knows where the joy is. He's already solved the puzzle. Folks. He knows the answer. He's trying to guide it to us, to it. But you can't just
know the answer. You have to become the answer. It's, it's tied, it's interwoven with the process itself. That's how he shows you is by taking you there. OK? So I hope that instead of what this leopard did, we would have gone to the priest like he said, no matter how grateful we were, we would have shown
him by doing what he said. And then immediately after the priest did his thing and we wouldn't have told us soul who did it to us. And if the priest said, who did this, you'd say I'm not supposed to say, he told me not to tell anyone. And even if they said you better tell us or we're gonna kill you and
say, won't kill me. Because guess what, that guy cured me of leprosy. I'm pretty sure that he can, he can make sure I'm OK in the eternities too, right? So, and then you'd hightail it as fast as you could once the priest was done back to Jesus, right? In another verse. Uh oh Yeah, yeah. Going back to
Luke 17. Uh Luke's version of this, the last verse verse 19 of this story, he said, Jesus says to the man arise, go thy way. Well, what is your way? Whatever it was before he healed you. Is there any way that's better than his way now? Ok. So that's a great segue into uh two other points I wanted to
raise. One of these is um well, there, there, it's two vignettes of how people responded to what I would call blasts of light, manifestations of God. OK. More light and truth improvement. It doesn't matter what you call it, it's all the same. So here's two stories. One is Moses so short, recap, Moses
had lived 40 years or whatever uh in the courts of Pharaoh. He was very high in the chain of command. He, he had uh military victories, political um victories, all sort of contributions, I should say, all sorts of accolades of the world. And then he gets cast out and he got cast out because God told
him I have this mission for you with these people, your people, the Hebrews. And everyone knew that there was this prophecy of a deliverer that would come, it was legendary there. And um God basically said you're this person. And Moses thought he'd go about doing this by, by um his own hand. I'm not
criticizing him for doing this. This is a very normal thing to do as you say. All right. Well, how exactly can I fulfill this thing that God showed me, what's the next step? And he saw two Hebrews arguing and, and um you know, he killed the one to, to save the other, whatever and, and, and tried to hide
it and he got found out and exiled. And so he was exiled and he's in Midian and he's a shepherd now. It's easy to tell stories like this, but you really need empathy to understand them. And I don't mean empathy in the world's use of the term, I mean revelatory experience. So God can help you discern
how this was. And if you're not careful, he'll help you discern by living how this was with whatever story you're reading from the scriptures and then the depth of it just increases infinitely. And uh you can see things that maybe aren't in the text because they're written in your heart. Now they're
etched. You know, Pa Paul talks about how he carried the marks of Jesus bodily. And uh what he meant by that is he had scars on his body from being beaten and uh from all the things he had gone through in, in what people did to him because what he said, but he taught them about Jesus and the words, the
words he uses there, but the words he uses there, it talks about, it's, it's the same words you'd use to describe branding and edible. And so Greek and Hebrew, they're powerful languages because they have so many connections. And at the same time, Paul was saying I have scars on my body that I've gotten
from who, how I've lived like Jesus and how I've talked about here without regard to help what people would do to me because of it. But he was also saying the life I've lived, it's apprehended me as the property of Jesus because I had not been ashamed of him and who I am and what I do. He will not be
ashamed of me. In the last day when I stand before the father to be judged of this life, I've lived because he has sealed me, his, he is connected me to him in an everlasting bond that can't be broken because what made it valid has been done. It's done. And it can't be undone because it can only happen
here. He says I've run the race and I have won the prize and everything he did in his ministry wasn't so he could win the prize folks. He already had it. He was turning around and running back to help other people cross the line. So Moses Moses um, had gone through a lot of things and it's hard to imagine
that unless you've been through things like it and you can read about it, but it's not the same, but God can give it to you in your life in ways that other people wouldn't even know they wouldn't see it from the outside. So a piece of understanding what Moses was going through at this time was to understand
that in his culture, the culture of Egypt, the culture he grew up in as a uh a member of the household of Pharaoh, the family of Pharaoh uh cattle people, uh shepherds, shepherds were an abomination. And here he was a shepherd. He kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He
went from the priest of the prince of Egypt to a servant shepherd in Midian. Now, it's hard for people to wrap their head around this. It's hard. So anyway, for the sake of time, you can take that and think about it, but I need to keep moving. Um So here he is in that level of um humility being humbled
. And uh it says he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God even to hb and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. And he looked and behold the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. The bush was not consumed
because the fire was not earthly fire described as a bush because it was a billowing fire and it was caused by the glory of this angel of the Lord that appeared unto him and Moses locked and be held. So theophany are really something and I can't go into more here as much as.