Sunday, March 14, 2010

Seeing God’s Glory

There are times in our lives when everything seems to be going great. We are doing well financially. We feel good physically. God is doing great things in our lives and it seems like it could not get any better and then the bottom drops out. What we do in this situation is extremely important. Moses experienced a time like this and the result was he saw God’s glory and it changed him forever.

Moses had just spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with the Lord. He had been fasting and had direct fellowship with the Lord as no man had had since Adam. I am sure he felt that heaven could not be much better than this. However, when he came down from the mountain he found that the people had rebelled against the Lord. They had made an idol and began to worship it even though they all promised to worship only the Lord (Exodus 32:1-29).

Moses could have just run away from this seemingly hopeless situation, leaving the entire nation of Israel to die in the desert but instead he began to intercede for the people (Exodus 32:30-35). He turned to God instead of running away.

Moses must have felt all alone for in Exodus 33:12 he asks God who will be going with him. The Lord answers by reminding Moses that he would go with him (Exodus 33:14). Perhaps emboldened by the Lords response, Moses then states that unless the Lord goes with all of them he will not go (Exodus 33:15-16) and once again, the Lord promises to go with all of them because Moses has found favor in the Lord’s eyes.

Emboldened even more, Moses now boldly asks to see Gods glory. God knew that if he revealed all of his glory to Moses, he would not survive so he devises a way protect Moses from all of Gods glory and only reveal part of his glory to Moses. He instructs Moses to hide in the cleft of a rock while God passed by. God would hide the fullness of his glory as he went by and then remove his hand so Moses could see only his back.

When the bottom seems to have dropped out and we have come down from the mountaintop into a stormy turbulent situation, we need to follow the example of Moses. We need to pray and intercede. We need to ask God to go with us through the storm. Then we need to boldly ask God to reveal his glory to us. However, will we be able to survive the fullness of God’s glory? The answer is yes.

We have something Moses did not have; we have the protection of the Blood of Jesus. Just like Moses was kept save in the cleft of the rock, we are save under the covering of the blood of Jesus. We also have assurance that God is always with us (Hebrews 13:5). However, this truth only applies to those who have invited Jesus into their heart. If you have not done so, take a moment now to invite him into your life. Do not fear, he loves you and sent his son to die for you (John 3:16). All you need to do is follow the instructions found in Rom 10:9-10

9 For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.
NLT

God is now with you wherever you go. Now ask him to reveal himself to you, without fear for you are now protected by the blood of Jesus but how does God reveal himself to us? The answer to that question is the Bible. The Bible is Gods instruction manual for us. He wrote it so we could find out more about him but we must open it and start reading. We also need to find a Church home that teaches the Bible so we can gain a better understanding of what God is trying to tell us.

Next, the power of a rendered heart.

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