Exodus 4:31b (NIV) And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.

The Hebrew people had been in bondage in Egypt for a long time and the situation was getting worse. God had confided many years before to His servant, Abraham, that his descendants would suffer and be oppressed in Egypt for 400 years (Genesis 15:13). This happened because the people of God had started picking up the habits and customs of the Egyptian people, including worshipping their gods. They forgot about the God of their fathers and ended up worshipping and serving the very gods of the people that had enslaved them. It doesn’t make any sense that they did that, but then again, idolatry is senseless when you have known the one and only God. But after a long time, they became miserable enough to remember their God and to call on Him for help.

When people humble themselves and call on God, God answers, even if they have been living sinful lives. That’s one of the many things that stands out about our Redeemer and Lord. Once we repent and call on Him, He hears us and delivers us and He does it because of His great concern and love for us. When God chose Moses to be the one that He would bring deliverance through, He told him that He had seen the misery of His people and that He was concerned for them. When the people heard that, they were moved in their hearts and began to worship Him. It is an awesome thing to find out that the God who made the heavens and the earth is paying attention to your plight and that His heart is a heart of care and concern for you. But it shouldn’t be something that we find out. It should be something that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt because the Lord has made it clear through His Word over and over that He loves us and is concerned for us. It’s just hard for us to believe, especially when we are living in disobedience to Him. But that is our God!

The response of the people was to bow down and worship. That should be our every-day response to the love and care that the Lord shows to us on a daily basis. All of us have experienced the mercy and grace of God when we least deserved it and many can testify that they are still alive and breathing, notwithstanding the way that they were living, only because of God’s grace, love and concern for them. Let’s maintain an attitude of worship and gratitude to the one who set us free from our bondage to sin while we were still caught up in it because on His Fatherly concern for us. There is no God like our God and no God but God!

Pastor Joey Vazquez