Looking Out from the Palace
I’ve been thinking about Moses—not just the Moses we read about, but Moses as a man, looking out through his own eyes. And I try to see it through modern nowaday eyes.
He was born a Hebrew, a slave in the land of Egypt, but raised in Pharaoh’s palace. Imagine that—born to the oppressed, living in the lap of the oppressor. The finest clothes, the richest food, servants at his beck and call. The chariots, the horses, the palaces bigger than anything you could even imagine. Today’s people want the best everywhere, every holiday, every luxury at your fingertips. The finest perfumes, the best jewelry, the grandest feasts, comforts, at the snap of a finger the dream life in which some live an a lot try to attain to it. you can even watch the influencers live it out and live stream it back to you so you get to some what partake in it too .
And yet… there’s a quiet in it all. A stillness that isn’t peace. Because outside the walls of his palaces Moses saw that the people were suffering. The Hebrew people, the slaves, the ones he should be part of, trapped under rules and oppression he could barely imagine.
I start to think about our world today. I think about all the things we consume on the daily all the tings we wish for all that we want and desire then I think of all the things we’re taxed on: our TV, our toothbrush, the milk we pour on our cereal, our bins, our wages, our houses, our cars, the buses, the trains, planes—even the gardening tools and seeds we buy. Everything has a price, everything is controlled, measured, monitored. And we keep working—long hours, endless cycles—so we can survive, so we can maybe enjoy one week of escape, only to return to the grind ( that’s even if you’ve not been medically written off), the taxes, the debt from our over drafts the loans just to try and further educate ourselves at university or schools theres a price to pay on all things.
But it isn’t just in the luxury that we are blinded. It’s also in the poorest places. It’s in the crushing cost of living, the heating bills for our homes, the fourteen-hour workdays , that delicious coffee you must have on your way through the Starbucks drive-throughs, the two hours it takes to earn enough to pay for that costa coffee, the diesel and petrol just to fill up your tank to get to work to pay for the home in which you live, wood we buy for the fire, the flour . Everywhere there is striving, scrambling, exhaustion. The struggle becomes invisible because we’re too busy surviving it to see it for what it is.
And then I thought about —what Moses must have felt looking out at the people working building the exhaustion, the rushing, struggling, barely surviving, carrying burdens they didn’t choose. And I see it too in this day: the world is beautiful on the surface, but what fallen man has built the systems in which we have no choice but to partake in and it got me thinking about ephesians, the spiritual realm, The rulers, the authorities, the powers Paul talks about in Ephesians—they’re at work in our day . Not just in Pharaoh’s Egypt, not just in government or banks, but everywhere. They shape the world, keep people blind to freedom from the external because they keep you distracted from the Lord, remember Judas thought that Jesus was going to free them all from the romans and the oppression but he Jesus said to all the apostles; especially “ my Kingdom is not of this world”, its an internal kingdom and it happens to be inside of you, external is just white washed all that is external is temporary and the Lord wants us to go deeper with him and rid us of all that is fallen (us) so that his whole new creation in him may come forth. you see flesh and blood can’t enter the kingdom of God and we are to worship him in truth and in spirit.
Moses left all that external grandiosity all that was given to him, all that he had been brought up with every single day..it was empty external and the Lord internally convicted him as he looked out at the Hebrew people who were externally poor beaten and enslaved and afflicted .
Moses had it all. Everything he could want. And yet, what is wealth when the soul sees the chains of injustice, the oppression of people, There must come a point when all the external things no longer impress you or the hardships distract you (Some hear the word and receive it joyfully, but when trials or persecution come, they fall away.).
I can’t help but see the modern parallels. We live in a world dressed up and the spiritual hidden, beautiful on the surface, and yet torn in ways we can’t see. We go to work, we pay our taxes, we chase our pleasures, we save for our escapes. And unless we open our eyes fully—to both the world and the spiritual realm—we are no freer than the Hebrew slaves Moses looked at. We are blinded by appearances, lulled into thinking comfort equals freedom.
But there is a Shepherd. Moses looked out and saw the problem; Jesus steps in and gives us the solution. He frees us from more than just the cycles of work or debt or the grip of rulers authorities. He frees us from the darkness behind it all…….. ourselves —the spiritual forces that keep us distracted from Christ. Christ made you for one thing that he may dwell in you…. Christ in you the hope of glory. Christ is the last Adam , remember the first Adam was fallen and like produces like. two seeds the wheat and the tares.
Christ is what God intended and you are to be conformed unto his image but its a choice,
Key Scriptures about “Christ in Us”
Galatians 2:20
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”Colossians 1:27
“To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”Romans 8:9
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”Romans 8:10
“But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”2 Corinthians 13:5
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?”Ephesians 3:16–17
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”John 14:20
“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”John 17:21
“That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”Galatians 4:19
“My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you...”Ephesians 2:22
“In him you also are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
(Implied: Christ in us through the Spirit.)Colossians 3:11
“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”1 John 4:13
“This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.”
That’s where we are, too. Standing in a world , that tries to dazzles us, that taxes every breath, every purchase, every moment. But if we open our eyes—truly open them—we see that we need Jesus, And we remember—the Shepherd is here, and freedom isn’t found in gold or beaches or yachts, nor in surviving the grind, nor in escaping debt and exhaustion. Freedom is found in us surrendering all and praying not my will be done Lord but your will be done.
have we counted the cost of following the Lord?, one of these days I will be looking at Saul to Paul, what his external and internal life looked like before and after Christ revealed himself to Paul.
so for now these are again just some things ive been thinking about.
Good bye for now and God bless x
