One Essential Thing

One Essential Thing

When embarking on a journey, particularly a long and hazardous one, you want to make sure you don’t leave something essential behind.

The children of Israel were on a journey to the Promised Land through the wilderness. The distance itself could have been covered in a few short months, but it took forty years. Their unbelief, rebellion, and hardness of heart caused this lengthening of days.

There was one essential thing, however, Moses knew they could not do without. This essential thing is revealed in the following verses:

And He said, “My presence shall 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 lead us up from here. ¹⁶ For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the [other] people who are upon the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:14-16 – NASB)

When God told Moses His Presence would go with them it jolted him into a realization. If God’s presence did not go with them there was no point in continuing.

In modern terms he was saying, “Don’t take us any further on his journey if you’re not going to be with us. We won’t be different from anyone else if we do not experience your Presence all the way to the Promised Land.

“We’ll be just like all the other heathen nations if you don’t go with us. No one will know the difference between us and them; there will be nothing to distinguish us from the other nations. They won’t know we are Your people if they can’t sense your Presence in our midst.”

The same thing can be said for the church, today:

Unless unbelievers can sense the manifest Presence of God in our midst, they won’t be able to distinguish us from the rest of the people in this lost and dying world.

The Presence of the Lord

(© Sunday 12^th April 2015 – by Christopher Shennan)

And He said, “My presence shall 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 lead us up from here. (Exodus 33:14-15 – NASB)

I can’t go into the future,

Unless You are close by my side;

I can’t face the trials and troubles,

Unless I can in You abide.

Life without You is uncertain.

Worse, it is a dangerous road;

Death and destruction await me,

Except when You carry my load.

Without Your Presence I’m done for;

No bright future’s waiting for me –

Despair will be my companion,

And nothing but darkness I’ll see.

Don’t let me go any further,

Lord, not even a step ahead,

Unless I’m sure of Your Presence,

And know that by Your hand I’m led.

Make me to feel You are with me;

Make me to breathe Your pure air.

I cannot go into the future,

Unless I know You are there.

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(Picture in the public domain)