READING:
One-year plan: Exodus 3-7
Two-year plan: Ezra 6-7, Acts 11:19-26
———-
I remember teaching a ninth-grade English class made up of generally uninterested 15-year-olds. I think I’m a decent teacher, but still I had to say more than once, “Pay attention!” Sometimes my words worked, but sometimes they didn’t.
How grateful I am that God pays better attention to His people than my students did to me! Hear, for example, God’s word for the Hebrews as He was preparing to lead them out of Egypt: “I have paid close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt” (Exo 3:16). The words translated “paid close attention to” mean that God “was not merely . . . aware, but that he was going to do something about it.”* The words assumed action as God showed deliberate and intentional care for His people. And, when Moses and Aaron reminded the people of God’s concern through their words and miraculous signs, notice what the people did: “The people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had paid attention to them and that he had seen their misery, they knelt low and worshiped” (Exo 4:31).
That’s what we should do, too, when we think about how much God pays attention to us. We should kneel low and worship.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: How much does it mean to you that God is paying attention to you?
DAILY PRAYER: “God, I bow before You and worship You.”
TOMORROW’S READINGS:
One-year plan: Exodus 8-10
Two-year plan: Ezra 8-9, Acts 11:27-12:5
MEMORIZATION VERSE (JAN 16-31):
“A person’s steps are established by the Lord, and he takes pleasure in his way.” (Psa 37:23)
* Stuart, D. K. (2006). Exodus (Vol. 2, p. 123). Broadman & Holman Publishers. Italics in original.