Encouragement
HUNGRY FOR THE PRESENCE - EXODUS 33:15-17
Then Moses said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that You are pleased with me and with Your people unless You go with us? What else will distinguish me and Your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
In the preceding verses, Moses asked God for help as he led his people into their new land, and how God promised Moses that His Presence would go before them and lead the way. But Moses was in need of further assurance. He said to God “We cannot go on unless you promise to go with us”! Moses was not a young man. (He had spent the first forty years of his life in Pharaoh’s palace and the next forty years in the desert tending sheep. He served as the leader of Israel during his last forty years.) He had been called to a difficult and painful task when God appointed him the deliverer and leader of Israel. Bringing over 2 million people out of captivity in a pagan nation, and then leading them back to the ways of God was not easy. He knew there was no way he could fulfill God’s commission unless the presence of God abided with him and gave him the supernatural enabling he needed.
Moses was hungry for the presence of God. He had experienced God’s reality in many ways since the first time he heard the voice of God through the blazing bush in the desert (Exodus 3). The presence of the Almighty had travelled with him and the nation as a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. He had met with God on Mount Sinai and received the commandments and God’s stipulations for worship. He had soaked in the sweet anointing of God for forty days and forty nights. But he was hungry for more! The more he experienced the sweetness of the Lord, the more he longed for. Each time he left the presence of God and went back to face the challenges which came with his role as leader, he knew that there was no way he could meet the demands of his calling unless he soaked in the presence of the Master and received all the enabling and empowering He needed to keep things going. Moses knew he led a motley group of shaky faith, and little discipline. They were mostly people of little education and no training in warfare as they had been slaves in Egypt for generations. As they travelled towards their future home, they passed through hostile territories, nations who had heard how God had brought them out of bondage in Egypt, and felt threatened by Israel. These were people who were prepared to fight them, with chariots and weapons. Moses knew his people did not stand a chance, unless the invincible power of God travelled with them. God told Moses He was pleased with Moses, but Moses said “How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless You go with us?” And “What else can distinguish me and Your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” He knew that if God’s favor was upon them, it had to be apparent to the world. Their enemies had to flee; people had to acknowledge that God was real and with them.
Friends, Moses’ life was touched and transformed by revelations of Yahweh and encounters with His presence, but he was not satisfied. His heart was not content even with the powerful words God spoke into his life and heart, and the awesomeness of hearing God say He was pleased with Moses and knew him by name. He sought more! He wanted the presence of God to be so real in his life that people would see it, and know that he was different. He wanted the world to acknowledge that he and his people were walking in a peculiar and special blessing which set them apart from everyone else.
This is what the Father has for each of us! He wants to so fill our lives with His presence that we will be Holy Spirit dispensers, walking in the power of the name of Jesus, blessed and carrying His blessing wherever we go. He wants us to walk in His favor to such a degree that we will be clearly different to anyone else on the face of the earth. He says in 1 Peter 2:9: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light.” His presence can bring us favor in the highest places; His presence can open doors that no man could normally open. His touch upon our lives can be such an overflowing and radiant reality as we walk in the saturation of His anointing that people can get healed and delivered just from being around us! This was the case with the apostles of the early church. The book of Acts (5:15) tells us that people were healed when Peter’s shadow fell upon them! Such power, and it comes from the intensity of the Presence; and the Presence comes when God is pleased with His kids who seek to know His heart and long for more of Him.
Precious people, let me encourage you to get hungry for the Presence of God. The Lord pours out His Spirit where He is loved and wanted. He comes to those who are surrendered to Him and permit Him to have His way. In our lives and ministries, there is always room to yield more, and allow Him the access and the freedom He deserves. Moses discovered the secret of successful leadership – simply soaking in the presence and allowing God to be God in his life. The more he had, the more he hungered – it is an addiction we all need to have! Regularly set aside time to seek the Lord through worship, and as you lift up the name of Jesus, and proclaim His Lordship over your life, you will know His presence manifested more and more, and see the sweetness of the Holy Spirit bringing powerful change for yourself and those you encounter. Whatever the task you have been called to do, you will see God taking over, and bringing you a fruitfulness and success you have never seen – the sweet Spirit will lead you as you lead and you will know a deep inner peace that you never experienced before, despite all the possible sources of stress that still arise in your life each day. This is His promise to you – that His Presence will go with you, and He will give you rest!
In a time when there is so much pressure to “go with the flow”, to be part of the herd, and to be accepted because we are like everyone else, let us dare to be different. Let us dare to carry the presence of Almighty God upon our lives, and see the world wonder as Kingdom comes where we are! May His favor rest upon you. May His presence flow into and through your life, touching your work, your ministry, your finances, your family – everything that concerns you. You are chosen, you are set apart. You are marked with the blood of Jesus! You are a carrier of the Presence!
Minoli Haththoutwa, 20 September 2010
www.wingslikeeagles.info
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