Tag: draw near to God

What made Moses and Joshua special?  What made them different from the rest of the Israelites?  Why could God use them?

I think the answer is found in this chapter.  Both had a desire to draw close to God. 

While the rest of the Israelites feared God, Moses and Joshua loved God and wanted to draw near. 

While the rest of the Israelites stayed at a distance from God, Moses saw him face to face. 

Joshua didn’t enter with Moses to meet with God, but he was always close by, and when Moses left the tent where he met with God, Joshua lingered behind, hungering to be near God.

When Moses spoke with God, his heart’s desire was that he could know God and his ways more intimately.  He said,

If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.  (Exodus 33:13).

Moses’ desire was that God would be with him wherever he went, and so he said,

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? (15-16)

But his greatest desire was to actually see God.  “Now show me your glory,” he said.  (18).

What was God’s response to all this?  He said,

My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest…

I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name. (14, 17).

The only thing that God didn’t allow was for Moses to see his face, because no sinful person can see an utterly holy God and live. 

(When it says Moses saw God “face to face,” this was of a course a figurative expression meaning that they had an intimate relationship, not that Moses actually saw his face).

Even so, he let Moses see as much as he was able and revealed at least part of his glory to him that Moses might know him better.

Why did God do all this for Moses?  Because he wants to draw near to us. 

As much as we may or may not desire to draw near to God, he desires to draw near to us. 

He knows us by name.  And he desires to walk with us and reveal himself to us.

The question is, do we desire to draw near to him? 

God has said,

For who is he who will devote himself to be close to me?  (Jeremiah 30:21)

Another translation says, “Who would dare to risk his life to approach Me?” 

Christ, of whom the passage speaks, did so.  He was the only one who could do so at that time, because he was the only one who was as pure and holy as God the Father. 

But because his blood has washed away our sin, so can we.

As James wrote,

Come near to God and he will come near to you.  (James 4:8)