Moses said to the Lord , “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”
Exodus 33:12-16 ESV
This conversation of Moses with God was the aftermath of Israelites falling into idolatry. In previous verses, God said that He would no longer be with them going to the promised land. And once more, Moses interceded for his people.
I admire Moses’ heart for the Lord and his people. This tells me that God really knows how to call the right people for the job. Omniscient that He is, God knew that the Israelites would sin against Him and how Moses would seek His glory and presence. As a reader of the Scripture, I began to thank and praise God for the life of Moses and the task He had appointed to him. A lot of interaction of Moses with God reveals how we should regard and approach our Lord.
Indeed, this passage highlighted how important the presence of the Lord to be in all our endeavors. The things we accomplish are senseless if it is just us and God has no part on achieving them. For Moses, their inheritance of the promised land was not the real blessing, it was the presence of God. They could have gone and conquered the promised land on their own but without God personally with them, Moses knew they would be restless and be just another ordinary nation.
As I reflect, thanks be to Jesus who continually intercedes for me, making my prayers acceptable to our Father in heaven, for He also sends the Holy Spirit as His presence to guide me and give me peace. ❤❤❤
Soli Deo Gloria!
-Rhia
In Honor of Christ 