A Kingdom of Priests (12)

 Intercession (7)

"Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight…

 

“I pray You, show me Your glory!” (Exodus 33:13, 18)

 

Moses desired to not just know the works of God, he also wanted to know the ways of God; and in desiring to know the ways of God Moses desired to see the glory of God. Yes, there is indeed a glory in knowing the works of God, but there is another glory in seeing the ways of God. The act of the Cross of Christ is glorious, the heart of God that is manifested in the Christ of the Cross is inexpressible.

 

Can the works of God be separated from the ways of God? Of course not. Can our understanding of the ways of God and the acts of God grow and mature? Of course they can. Children often only see the acts of their parents, without ever growing to know their parents. The same can be said in all relationships – we can see what a person does but not see who the person really is.

 

The Psalmist tells us that God “…made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel” (Psalm 103:7).

 

Paul desired to “know Him and the power of His resurrection and the koinonia of His suffering” (Phil. 3:10).

 

Jesus came to reveal the Father to us, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth…No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him know.” (John 1:14, 18)

 

“Jesus said to him, Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who as seen Me has seen the Father…” (John 14:9).

 

The desire that Moses had, to know the ways of God, to see God and His glory, would have two fulfillments; the first would be an immediate fulfillment in Moses’s own life, the second would be a greater fulfillment with the Incarnation – what Moses desired for himself would have a greater fulfilment in our own lives…assuming that we also desire to know Him deeply, to know not just the acts of God but also the ways of God, and not just the ways of God but the Way of God (John 14:6).

 

Do we know Him, or do we simply see His acts? Are we spectators or are we knowers?

 

I meet few professing Christians who speak as if they know the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In fact, I have hardly ever met professing Christians who talk to me of Jesus; they talk of church, of programs, of music, of preachers and pastors, of a "Christian" worldview, but they seldom talk to me of Jesus. Most of the Sunday school sessions I’ve endured, and most of the small groups, have been places where Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are spoken of as strangers, as a God who has been read about but never really known. People will talk about the works of God, but hardly ever of the ways of God, hardly ever of knowing God.

 

How can this be? How can this be with people who have been “going to” church for decades? What have we done? How is it that this condition does not appear to bother us?

 

As we will see with Moses, knowing the ways of God enables us to move into a dimension of intercession not available to us if we only know the works of God.

 

Well, I’d like to write a bit more now, but we have a hurricane coming our way and I’d better post this while I still can.

 

Love and blessings…Bob