When God Passes By [43:18m]:
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Exodus 33:12-23 [+/-]Exodus 33:12-23
[12]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.' [13]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."
[14]And he said, "My presence will go with you, and I will
give you rest." [15]And he said to him, "If your presence
will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. [16]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?"
[17]And the LORD said to Moses, "This very thing that
you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my
sight, and I know you by name." [18]Moses said, "Please
show me your glory." [19]And he said, "I will make all my
goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my
name 'The LORD.' And I will be gracious to whom I will be
gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
[20]But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for man shall
not see me and live." [21]And the LORD said, "Behold, there
is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, [22]and
while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the
rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed
by. [23]Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my
back, but my face shall not be seen." (ESV)
Wouldn’t it be nice if our journey with Jesus was an ever upward movement toward heaven where each day we grew to be more and more like Him? What it would be like for every day with Jesus really to be sweeter than the day before so that every day is bathed in the beauty of sunlight, garnished with gentle breezes with no difficulties or dark nights of the soul, no problems or pains, no failures or falls but every day we are climbing higher and higher as we reach for glory. Wouldn’t it be nice if walking in the way of Jesus were like floating on a raft down a cool stream on late summer day? But it just isn’t that way, is it? If it is for you then you are either the most to be praised or the most to be pitied. For most of us the journey is jagged. It is a few steps forward and a few steps backward. It is sometimes moving from side to side and then there are those times when we sense that we are going nowhere. The pilgrimage is paused.
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