Why was Moses insecure? The Israelites blamed him for every problem that they encountered. If there was not enough food, Moses was to blame. If there was anything wrong, Moses was supposed to fix it and if he couldn’t the Israelites used him as a scapegoat instead of taking responsibility for the work of getting free, they put the burden entirely on Moses.

I wondered to myself: why would Moses tolerate such treatment? Why was he so insecure? First, Moses was slow of speech and did not believe that he could speak in front of the Israelites. Second, Moses was a criminal. Indeed, as a I was talking to God about this post, he reminded me that Moses had once killed a man. He was never caught by pharaoh. Though he did it with good intentions (he wanted his people to be free), it was not the way to go about achieving his goal. Moses probably carried the weight of that murder around with him believing that he, like that man, deserved to die.

Perhaps Moses thought that carrying the Israelites to Canaan was his punishment. My dear brothers and sisters, my heart goes out to Moses and, if you too carry this burden of guilt and shame, then I pray that God will set you free

In 2 Corinthians 5, it reads:

16-20 Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.

What a beautiful truth. Indeed, this passage tells us that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. That makes my heart filled with joy and I want you to know that this is not just a nice thing that the bible says to make us feel good. This is the gospel! This is the good news. Otherwise, it would not be called gospel. Friends, your sins can be forgiven. If you do not believe that you are new then you do not know Jesus. It is as simple as that. It is a dreadful life to live when you are not forgiven but God. What’s more, if you do receive God’s forgiveness then you won’t be able to forgive others. Even more, when you don’t forgive, God does not forgive you for your sins. We must let go of others who have wronged us to receive our peace from God. Whether you have struggled with lust, greed, adultery, fornication, or whatever sin, God is faithful to forgive. I’m a living witness.

One of my favorite passages of scripture, James 4:12 reads: There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you–who are you to judge your neighbor?

God was trying to set Moses free as Moses set the Israelites free. God didn’t come to condemn Moses but to redeem him. God wanted to display his power to forgive by choosing and useing Moses.