Day 14: Friend of God

Read: Exodus 33

Exodus 33 | NIV Bible | YouVersion


Moses would meet with God face to face at the Tent of Meeting, as a man meets with his friend.  Was Moses perfect, to have found such favor with God?  No, he was still a man, just like we are.  But God chose Moses, and Moses in turn depended on God with all his heart for wisdom, direction, strength, and everything he needed for the massive job of leading this huge assembly of people through the desert.  Moses enjoyed this privilege that none of the other Israelites could experience, friendship with God.

Today, we are blessed in that each and every one of us who calls himself a follower of Christ has been called to be God’s friend.  In John 15:15-16a, Jesus said, “I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves.  Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything my Father told me.  You didn’t choose me.  I chose you.”

And one of the marks of our friendship with God is the assurance of His presence with us.  Moses cried out to God, “If you don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place.”  The Israelites experienced the presence of God in the manifest form of a cloud.  As they journeyed through the desert, when the cloud moved, they packed up their tents and followed the cloud.  When the cloud stopped, they stopped and set up camp.

We don’t need to see a cloud to experience God’s presence.  Jesus promised His disciples, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.  He is the Holy Spirit, who leads in all truth.... You know him, because he lives with you now, and later will be in you” (John 14:16-17).  What an amazing gift!  We can know that we have God’s own Spirit living within us all the time!

The desert place need not only be a place of loneliness and desolation.  It is not just a place of testing and trial.  Sometimes the desert is a place of communion, a place where we can remove ourselves from the distractions of life so that we can focus on God, spend extended times of communion with Him, drawing us closer to Him and making us more like Him.  Are you able to look at your desert season with fresh eyes as a season of drawing close to God in sweet communion?

 

Listen: Friend of God - Israel Houghton (HQ w/lyrics) - YouTube

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