Understanding Your Assignment

By Alexandra Copeland

Moses had a destiny to become a man employed by God. His assignment was to deliver God’s people from the bondage of slavery. There are a few extremely important underlying truths about what Moses accomplished that we can't afford to overlook. The first of which is the condition of God's people before Moses took ownership of his assignment. God’s people living during Old Testament times often ran hot for God one minute, then cold the next. Sometimes, they turned their backs on Heavenly Father and didn’t obey His Word. Although the bible was not in convenient written form as it is today, Heavenly Father didn't withhold His Word from those living in Old Testament times. He delivered it through the Holy Spirit by way of angelic messengers and prophets He entrusted to speak for Him. God blessed His people and performed many miracles on their behalf, but still they made the choice to disconnect from Him at times. The consequences landed them in bondage, but Heavenly Father didn't leave them in this condition. He helped them through Moses. In Exodus 6:6(NLT), He told him, “Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the LORD. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment.”

Just as Moses had a destiny to fulfill, we do as well. As we explore the awesome importance of understanding what God requires from us and then carrying it out, we can learn a tremendous amount from the example Moses left. He was not a perfect man, and he was not without sin. When first learning of what God wanted Him to do, Exodus 4:10(NLT) tells us, “But Moses pleaded with the LORD, “O Lord, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.” Moses had some challenges with stammering his words, and he didn’t believe himself to be fit for the task assigned.

#1 We are qualified
Some of us can relate to Moses’ insecurities because we may have some of our own, but there’s something we must be clear about, and it is a critical truth that we can learn from what God accomplished through Moses. We must be certain with every fiber in our beings that we are able to fulfill the destiny God has placed before us. God is brilliant beyond anything we can fathom. He knows all things, and He would not assign us to a task and not make absolutely sure we are able to carry it through. And not only this, Heavenly Father ensures we have all the resources needed to complete the tasks He has assigned. So, we are able, qualified, and fit to accomplish that which God has called us to fulfill.

#2 There’s nobody like you
Nobody can do what you do quite the way you do it. God has made each of us special and unique on purpose. We each have something different to bring to the table. In a world where everyone wants to be like everyone else, it can be easy to get lost in randomness, but we are not random people. We serve an ‘on purpose’ God, and He created us to be an‘on purpose’ people. Romans 8:29-30(NIV) tells us, “29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” We must understand that God has a destiny planned for each of us. We are not robots, but we are followers of Christ and God has ordered our steps to follow in his path.

Our Heavenly Father only wants the best for His children and never causes us to fail, falter, or regress. If we choose a path that leads us away from His plan, He will allow us to make that choice, but we must be clear that our destiny in Christ is the greatest choice that any of us could ever hope to make and the greatest path any of us could ever hope to follow. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 139:16(NIV), “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” The destiny that God has written about us in His Books in heaven is completely free of bondage, lack, loneliness, shame, and darkness of any kind. It is also written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. If we listen carefully, we will hear destiny's call from deep within. Not fulfilling our destiny is the great deficit we experience in our hearts, and walking in its path will cause us to experience joy to such levels that our physical bodies can hardly contain it.

#3 We must grow in faith
The third truth we should learn from Moses' example is that faith puts us squarely on the path to destiny, and faith keeps us there. The only way for Moses to fulfill his destiny was to stay close to God; it’s the only way for you and I to fulfill our destinies as well. Jesus Christ ripped the veil, which was his body, and opened the new and living way to God for us. Now, we can please God because of the closeness we share with Him through Christ. Hebrews 10:22(NLT) tells us, “let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. God lives within us through Christ, and we must make growing in faith a priority.

Hebrews 11:1 tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Walking in the Spirit requires accepting the reality that we must believe in what we cannot see. And not just believe but walk in it as though we can indeed see it. We have dual citizenship in a world that can be seen and a world that cannot be seen. Faith demands we understand that the one we cannot see is more real than the one we can.

The one we can't see is our home, and the world we can see is our temporary dwelling place; we are here a mere moment of time when you compare it to our eternal lives. 2Corintlhians 4:18(NLT) tells us, “So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” You and I are on this earth to do the work of God’s Kingdom. Our assignment is to walk in the Spirit and exercise faith to such a degree that our reality on earth mirrors the destiny God has written for us in His Books.  

#4 Every obstacle will move out of your way
When we walk the path of destiny that God has ordained for us, every obstacle and hindrance has no other choice but to move out of our way. God has designed everything in the universe to respond favorably to us when we are aligned with His Will. Walking in our destinies means that we are walking in His Will and Plan for our lives. A perfect paradigm for this is in Exodus 14, when God parted the Red Sea, so that the Children of Israel could escape the tyranny of Egypt’s pharaoh. It is an extremely powerful miracle to read about. The sea opened up so that the Children of Israel could walk right through. It then closed behind them, demolishing the Egyptian army that sought to place them in bondage again.

This bears testimony of our return to destiny's path after we've steered from it. Often a miraculous reentry follows our discovery of error, our diligence to correct it, and the greater level of faith we gleaned from sidestepping. The thing that God wants deeply etched in our souls is His faithfulness to His Word and Will, and His faithfulness to us as we walk in it. Trusting Him is the most intelligent, extraordinary endeavor we could ever undertake. We need to trust that He is good all the time, and that walking the destiny He’s laid before us is the way to please Him and to abide in His blessings and grace forever more.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

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