August 7, 2024
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in selections from Exodus and Romans? Here’s today’s reading:
Exodus 33 (NIV)
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ 2 I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.……Continue Reading
Exodus 33
If your presence will not go with us then do not send us up from here. We too only want to be where God is moving and working In our lives every day and in our church. To read God‘s word every day to set your mind during the rest of the day on what you have read renewing your mind daily sets your mind on the right path.
Amen
Psalms 19-20; Exodus 31-33; Romans 14
Sometimes God appeared not just on the mount but here; Moses would pitch a tent {Tent of meeting} where Moses would meet with God which was in a pillar of cloud. This tent was pitched outside the camp a little ways away. It says that anyone that wanted to seek the Lord would go there. It doesn`t say if the pillar of cloud was there when they sought the Lord. However Moses talked to God face to face as friends talk to each other. But not actually seeing God`s face or he would die. But Moses asked God if he could see His glory and God granted that request. God said that He will walk by him with His hand covering Moses face until He walked by and then would lift His hand and Moses would see His back. So a limited glory or Moses would die. This sounds like Christ before He was born of a virgin. The Second Person of the God Head or Trinity. I find this simply amazing! Now we actually have the Third Person of Trinity dwelling { Holy Spirit} dwelling in our hearts. May the Lord continue to bless all of you.
The people’s action has put God in a position to have a very anthropomorphic conversation with Moses. God is not dependent on man for anything and therefore is not truly effected by the people’s action. Yet what better way for Him to express His opinion of what they have done in making the golden calf than to say I will not go with you and I might destroy you. And how fitting for them to remove their ornaments especially after those kinds of things were used to make the golden calf. But in spite of the people’s actions, God has such an intimate relationship with Moses, showing Himself to be a relation God that condescends Himself to be with man in this way. It is Moses that enters the tent, but he represents the people and they show their identification with him by standing in front of their tents and regarding/worshipping the God that Moses is meeting with. And Moses once again advocates for the people and God is willing to reveal more of Himself to him. How amazing that Moses asks to see His glory and God says He will allow His goodness to pass before Him and declare His name. Think of all the other things that God could’ve allowed to pass before Him, but His glory is best expressed in His goodness and in His name. And although God is close to Moses (and us), there is an aspect of never becoming too familiar with Him. Man cannot see His face and live, but God does all that He can to be known in the maximum way that He can be known.
Imagine if each time we prayed or worshipped God we would see a physical representation of His presence like this pillar of cloud, what an amazing sight! Moses had such a strong yearning to be close to God. He saw this incredible thing and still he wanted more, he desired to be even closer with God and to see and feel His presence in an even more intimate way.
We know that the death and ressurection allows us the opportunity to walk and talk with Him all the time and yet so often we take it for granted. This chapter made me think about things in my life I really desire or really want to see happen and how hard I work or wish for them to be. But above all of those temporal things my desire to be closer to God every day and to have that yearning like Moses did should never be overshadowed by anything else.
”Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”“
Exodus 33:13-14 NKJV
Moses is a true leader, seeking God’s way more and more.
”So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.“
Exodus 33:11 NKJV
A little foreshadowing of the character of the man who would follow in Moses’ footsteps.