The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. -Exodus 33:11a NIV
Do you ever think about the crazy life of Moses? I mean, what a life! Born as a slave and slated for murder by the order of Pharoah, his mother and sister put him in a basket to float down the river to save his precious life. Adopted by Pharoah’s daughter, nursed by his mother then grew up in the palace.
Was he the only free descendant of Israel at that time? It seems that way. He murders an Egyptian to rescue an enslaved Israelite then has to run from Pharoah again! He ends up meeting a priest of God, marries his daughter, has children and becomes a shepherd. Slave to royal, to murderer/fugitive, then husband/father/shepherd.
Then one day many years into this new life, The Great I Am shows up. He reveals Himself to Moses from a burning bush. It looks like this life isn’t the last stop on his wild ride.
Moses goes back to Egypt and to the elders of Israel. He takes Aaron to the throne room and must stand against the new Pharoah, but now He knows God is with him. Oh, did I mention that Moses and Aaron are now able to perform insane miracles? Staff into a snake, water to blood, dust to gnats?
They are doing battle with the most powerful sorcerers in all of Egypt but Moses’s God, The Great I Am is winning. No surprise! Plague after plague, meeting after meeting, prayer after prayer. God frees His people and puts His power on display. Israel leaves with such abundance of jewelry, animals, and fine clothes that Egypt is plundered.
It’s still not time to retire for Moses. “God! We are stuck at the Red Sea! The Egyptian army is coming to kill us all!” “Moses, use your staff.” Okay now Moses has parted the Red Sea because of the power of God.
He receives the 10 commandments from God, spends 40 days and 40 nights without food or drink on the mountain with God, makes water spring from a rock and tries to keep a nation alive and obedient to God. The time Moses spends with God makes his face glow so brightly that everyone is scared and he has to wear a veil. 40 years in the desert and dies just outside the Promised Land.
What was his life?!
Was there anyone like him? Such highs, such lows. God blessed him so profoundly and asked so much of him. He formed Moses and trained him so uniquely. God held him to such a high standard and approached him is shocking ways. He invited him into deep relationship and even listened to his counsel. I haven’t even detailed the whole Bible story, and how much went on that didn’t get put into scripture?
He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel -Psalm 103:7
Israel and Moses knew God differently. I want to be like Moses, but I am always scared of the process. I want to know God the way Moses did and not just see His mighty deeds. I don’t just want the relationship where God does things for me and saves me, provides for me, and I thank Him, I want the one where I go into the Tabernacle alone to meet with Him and it leaves a mark on my face.
Will I submit to the process? Good times and bad times, being loved and cherished by people then rejected? Slavery to palace to shepherd to leader to desert? Confrontation, danger, faith, intercession? Will I submit and be humble like Moses? Will I allow God to crush me and meet with me? Will I fast? Will I suffer for Him?
Thanks to the redeeming work of Jesus this intimate relationship is available to all who call on His name. When we place our faith in Jesus and enter into this relationship, we have access to the Great I Am. He’s the same God with the same offer. He says, “Let me make my ways known to you. Come meet with mMe face to face.”
But it comes at a cost. It will cost you your whole life. Submission and obedience, risk and faith. It will cost your free time, your resources, and your preferences. It will even cost plenty of relationships. We go when He says go and stay when He says stay, but it is worth it. It is the only thing that is worth our lives.
Let’s be like Moses! Let’s do what we must to meet with God face to face. It’s scary but come on, is there any better pursuit?
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. -Romans 12:1
