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Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.”

Exodus 33:15

It is possible to experience success and yet be void of God’s presence. If success is what is important to you, you may be tempted to choose accomplishments over your relationship with God. God offered to send an angel with the Israelites as they entered the Promised Land to ensure their success in every venture. No army could withstand them. No city wall could stop them. The wealth of the land lay before them. 

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Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.

1 Corinthians 10:24

As a Christian you are obliged to view your actions in light of how they will affect other Christians. You will discover God’s will for your life when you consider His activity in the lives of others. This goes contrary to worldly thinking. The world encourages you to live your own life, taking care of your own needs and wants first. Sin promotes independence. It isolates you from others and separates you from those you could help or who could encourage you. God designed you for interdependence. 

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“For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.”

John 5:20

Jesus, realizing that His role was that of a servant, never sought to initiate activity for the Father (Matt. 20:28). The servant never sets the agenda—the master does. The servant must be so alert to what the master is doing that whenever the master begins to move in a direction, the servant quickly joins him. Even the Son of God did not assume He knew the best thing to do in a situation. Instead, He looked to see the Father’s activity and then joined Him. 

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Look, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the Lord God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.

Deuteronomy 1:21

One of the paradoxes of the Christian life is that God’s gifts often require labor on our part. God brought the Israelites to the Promised Land and told them He was going to “give” it to them (Num. 13:2). This sounded great to the Israelites until they realized that, with the gift, came battles against giants and fortified cities! Perhaps they assumed God was going to obliterate the inhabitants of the land before they entered. 

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“You have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us.”

Exodus 5:21b

It is possible for people to become so accustomed to their bondage that they resist efforts to free them. The Hebrews had been slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. Slavery meant that they were not free to do God’s will or to go where they wanted. Moses had come to tell the Israelites how they could experience freedom, yet they were more concerned about the reaction of their taskmasters than they were about pleasing God. 

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