The Presence, glory, face and ways of God

 The Presence, glory, face and ways of God

For the last 5 or 6 weeks I have been on a journey that has become a quest that is transforming into this overwhelming desire to dwell/abide in the presence of the Father.  To live in His Presence and glory, to seek His face and to know His ways. I feel it in the depths of my being that there is a level of closeness, of intimacy with the Lord that I have yet not experienced but that I must not only experience but abide/dwell/inhabit/live in.  

I begin, I think, to understand the depths of what Moses was expressing in Exodus 33:12-18.  These words are not just religious words but they are words that I believe come from the very depths of Moses soul. I believe that he is crying this out to the Lord because he knows that there is no other way for him to go on. 

Then 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 grace in My sight.’ 13 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.”14 And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”17 So the Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.” 18 And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.”

What jumps out to me is that before this Moses had spent 40 days on Mount Sinai in the glory cloud of the Lord, Exodus 24:16-18. During this time the Lord had given Him the law, and all the plans for the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant. Yet here in chapter 33 Moses is asking of the Lord that He show Moses His way and His glory along with the statement that if God’s Presence wasn’t going to go with them that there was no sense in proceeding further. As great of experience these 40 days of Exodus 24 had to have been Exodus 33 indicates that for Moses this wasn’t enough.  A 40 days visit wasn’t enough, Moses had to live/dwell/inhabit/abide in it or else what’s the point. 

For all my Christian life I have desired to see, experience and flow in the miracle power of the Lord.  For Mark 16:17-18 be seen in my life.  My first sermon was on the gifts of the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 12. Yet Moses had experienced one of the most miraculous, powerful demonstrations of God in Exodus 24, he had performed miracles and seen God’s awesome power displayed in Egypt. He had seen the red sea parted, the people being fed with bread from heaven, struck a rock and it gush out water, and yet, AND YET in Exodus 33 he is not asking for miracles but for God’s presence, ways and glory.  

Hebrews 3:7-11 

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, 8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, 9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. 10 Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’
11 So I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest.’ ”

I have read these verses many times and somehow missed this very important thing until recently. The generation of adults that came up out of Egypt saw God’s works, miracle power, for forty years.  They saw Him bring them quail to eat, give them water from rocks to drink, they were fed everyday with manna, they saw a pillar of Cloud by day and fire by night, and many other miracles. They also experienced a level of prosperity I wouldn’t mind having. They had come up out of Egypt having plundered its wealth and their clothes and shoes didn’t wear out during the whole 40 years they were wandered in the wilderness.  Notice that experiencing and seeing God’s power, miracles and prosperity did not bring them closer to Him.  It says that they saw God’s works for forty years but that they tested and tried the Lord and always went astray in their hearts. They didn’t know His ways thus they didn’t not enter into the rest of the Lord. 

As much as the power of God is important it is nothing compared to knowing God’s ways. To know His ways is to know Him at a deep, deep level of intimacy.  The best example that I can give is that of a husband and a wife who have been married for so long that with just a look, a sound in the throat or a simple gesture a whole line of communication happens that no one else understands.  When Moses in Exodus 33, David in Psalm 25, 27 and 86 say show/teach me Your way they are not simply asking for a checklist to follow. They are seeking, desiring, crying out for this great and deep level of intimacy.  

Moses and David don’t have these desires because they are separated from God or are in sin, it is the exact opposite.  They know God but have come to realize that there is more to know. There is this greater level of intimacy that they desire to have in the now and not just wait for it to come in the sweet by and by.  

Probably the best example and proof that we can have this level of intimacy right now, here on earth, is found in John 14 and 15. (For the sake of time I am only going to use a couple of verses from these chapters here. To really get the full impact please read both chapters in full for yourself.). 

John 14:20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

John 15:9  “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.

I really do not know if I have here, or could in any fashion, properly explain this desire that I feel growing inside me. I have read Psalm 27:4, One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple., and really didn’t understand the depth of its meaning till just recently.  How can I here do a better job of explaining then God’s Word here in this Psalm?  

Right now, everything else I have desired, hoped for and asked of the Lord is up on a shelf, secondary, until I get to this place of intimacy. Of dwelling/abiding/inhabiting/living in it and it in me. As much as I love to preach, have loved and look forward to traveling to Ireland and beyond.  To live the calling that God gave me I feel that to do that without this level of intimacy would be foolish and counterproductive. I think I feel in some small way like Moses in Exodus 33. I just can’t live life just being a visitor of God’s Presence and I am not satisfied living adjacent to it either.  I have to be all the way in and it all the way in me so much so that I know His ways, am before His face, and see and know His glory.  I want His Presence so in me and me in it that my shadow and clothes from my body to heal the sick and brings deliverance. If God is no respecter of persons why can’t this happen?  It wasn’t the power of Peter or Paul that caused these things to happen.  I believe that they were so in the Presence and the Presence in them that these things happened.  In addition, and even more so I want Acts 4:13 “And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” to be a mark of my life. That if there was anything said about me above everything else, above wealth, success, miracles, power, anointing, intelligence, preaching ability, that it would be that Philip Jaycox had been with Jesus.