There are a lot of powerful passages that provide valuable lessons for life and ministry, all throughout the Bible. But I truly think one of the most powerful is Exodus 33. I feel that every time I read this passage, the Lord shows me something different that can be applied to ministry.
Let’s set the scene: Moses has been struggling to lead an unruly, disobedient people. They have just gone through the golden calf debacle, and the journey to the Promised Land is about to derail. The Lord has told them that His Presence will not go with them because He would destroy them due to their sin, and instead He would send an angel with them. Moses doesn’t like this idea, and so he presses pause and takes some time to meet with the Lord and sit in His presence in the tent of meeting. (There are about a million takeaways from these verses, but I’m trying to stay on track for today.)
So this is where we come to the last portion of chapter 33. Moses knows what is at stake. And he doesn’t just want an angel. He wants God Himself. So he confronts the Lord in verses 12-16:
“Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people!’ But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, ‘I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.’ 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. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.” And He said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then he said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. 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?”
What a prayer! “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.” Moses did not want to continue the journey without the Presence of God. He did not want to continue leading the people without the Presence of God. If God’s Presence would not go with them, it wasn’t worth the journey. He knew that it was pointless to continue without the Presence of God. He knew they were too weak, too vulnerable to continue without the Presence of God. Moses didn’t want an angel when he knew he could have God Himself.
This passage always makes me stop to think. How many times in our ministries do we move forward without His Presence? How often do we just come up with our own ideas, our own programs, our own strategies-and leave Him out of it? How often do we come up with our own direction for our ministry, and then run it by Him, hoping for a quick stamp of His approval? How often do we just go through the motions, doing the same things year after year, and just assume that it’s His will? How often do we settle for second best, when we could tap into the Presence of God Himself? I think if we are honest, we do that way more than we’d like to admit.
How often in ministry do we move forward without the Presence of God?
I believe that if we truly understood the power of His presence, we would be begging Him just as Moses did. We would be heartsick at the thought of moving one step forward without His presence. We would be begging Him to be present in our ministries every single day. We would take time to enter our own tent of meeting through Jesus day after day, to spend time meeting with Him before we even thought about moving forward in our journey.
But Moses’ conversation with the Lord doesn’t end there. Not only did Moses beg for the Lord’s presence to return to the people, but Moses wanted to experience the weight of His glory for himself.
The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name.” Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” Then the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”
What a powerful passage. Here’s the thing-this passage could have played out differently. This passage might not even have happened. Why? Because Moses could have settled for the angel. He could have been so caught up in the massive leadership duties he had, trying to organize all those people and keep them from sinning, trying to motivate them to do the right thing-that he could have just settled and not thought about it twice. When God told him the angel was going instead of Himself, Moses could have said “ok, good plan, we’ll head out tomorrow. I’ll work harder to keep the people in line, thanks for sending the angel to help and sorry for the craziness back there at the mountain.”
But he didn’t.
And because he didn’t, he got to experience the glory of God in a way that perhaps no other human has.
God wants to move and work in our ministries. And He can do it in spite of us, but we know from passages like this He often doesn’t choose that. He wants us to want Him. This passage shows a huge danger that should stop us in our tracks…there is a second best. Moses wouldn’t have been out of the will of God if he just accepted the angel. He wouldn’t have been sinning by just accepting the angel. But wow, would he have missed out. There was so much more available to him than the angel.
Don’t settle for second best in your life and ministry. Beg for the presence of God Himself.
Lord, If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.
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