Praying to God who Cares for Us - Exodus 16-18 and Matthew 18:1-20

God is trying to get us to understand that He cares for all of our needs, and He wants us to pray for Him to meet those needs in His will. In Exodus 16 the Israelites needed food. In Exodus 17 they needed water. What did they do in both cases? They complained against Moses and Aaron. That was the wrong response to their need. Moses told them that he was not the one to solve their problems. God was the only one who could take care of their needs. Then, Moses prayed, and God showed him the solution. At the end of Exodus 17 they needed a victory over the Amalekites. It came not by bravery, but by Moses lifting up his hands with help to the God who supplied all their needs. Even in Exodus 18 when Jethro told Moses to organize the people so he would not wear everyone out, the reason was prayer. Moses needed to be crying out to God for the people. If he was busy judging the cases all day, he could not do the most important thing, which was to pray.

In Matthew 18 Jesus makes it very clear that He wants us to be humbly dependent on Him like a child is dependent on his parents. He cares for all of our needs. We must be assured that he cares for the one lost sheep. He cares that the sinning brother repents. Therefore, He listens when two pray for a certain thing. He is there when a group meets in His name. He is the one who cares for us. Too often, we forget to ask Him for what we need, or we complain against other people like Israel did. We must learn to pray to the loving Savior of the world who gave Himself for us.

Tomorrow, I intend to read Exodus 19-20 and Matthew 18:21-35.