“And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb.”
Exodus 33:6
“Ornaments of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great value.”
1Peter3:3
I love the Word of God. It is a well of life, a wealth of knowledge, a treasure, an anchor, the Word of God is hope, it is a source, it is an identity, a purpose. The Timeless and non local, eternal Word sheds light and life upon every heart and mind that conforms to its truth. Peter said it this way: “where else can I go Lord, you have the words of life?” Even if I don’t understand or it doesn’t fit my present world view that has been programmed into me by this present evil world from the day I entered this world, that doesn’t change or limit the veracity or certainty of the Word. The Word — The same yesterday today and forever. The Word— the anchor of the soul, the hope, “was made flesh dwelt among us, and His Glory was beheld, the Glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth.”
No matter what this world throws at us no matter how many deceptions and lies and schemes and distractions and lusts and stuff— the possession of Grace and Truth will supersede any earthly possessions we can possibly attain to.
To be ‘full of Grace of and Truth’ is perhaps the greatest state of enlightenment and illumination one could possibly reach for. Truth identifies with truth. It exposes counterfeits by its own genuineness. I can’t imagine how I could even begin to navigate through this world without the truth of God’s Word as my guide, as the ‘lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.’
I am grateful for the Word and for the Truth, I am grateful for the grace that is bestowed to me, ‘when there to my heart was the Word applied.’
“And of His fullness have all we received and Grace for Grace. For the law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.”
John 1:16,17.
We can see how here, as also in the previous passages in Exodus and Peter, there is the dichotomy between the natural and the spiritual, between the old and the new, between the Law and Grace. In the book of Exodus we find a people, a family that God has called unto Himself, that God has separated from the rest of the world, a family and heirs to a heavenly realm, rescued from the slavery and bondage of Egypt. God called His people out of the darkness, because He heard their cry in the midst of their bondage.
The memory however, of being enslaved and engulfed in bondage is never as harsh as a present reality of slavery can be. When we return again unto bondage, or addiction, or as I like to think of it as default mode, wherein the weariness of doing good, is met with memory of the ‘leeks and onions of slavery,’ we return because we forget the pain of it. In addition we must consider that we don’t remember the pain we caused others, because we never knew that pain, we created it.
We must also bear in mind that in modern society a great many substances that are sold or given to us, are designed to weaken us spiritually and as a consequence physically, and emotionally. They have been conditioning us since childhood to develop the mind of an addict, always craving and never satisfied. So in a way we are all in bondage and all subject to the slavery and addictions of the world, whether it is sugar, internet, social media, television, alcohol, leisure, or even work when it becomes all consuming.
For anyone who has ever overcome an addiction, and those who have defeated more than one, and more than once—this strikes a chord of truth in our hearts. For the children of Israel who were rescued from the hard bondage of slavery, afterwards when free, were consumed with the memories of ‘the good,’ when leanness came into the desert. The past is never as good as we remember it to be, especially when things get a little tough. This is precisely why Paul implores us to ‘forget those things which are behind, and press toward the mark for the prize of the High Calling of Christ.’ The trouble with Israel was not that they weren’t better off, it was that they were minus some of the creature comforts they had been used to when in Egypt, considering they were not always slaves there. The progression into slavery took about 400 years, so they retained a collective memory of the times of plenty where Joseph their Patriarch and host, was the most famous and powerful name in all of Egypt second only to Pharaoh. The times of prosperity even though not experienced by the current generation still existed in the corporate consciousness of the children of Israel. Similar to today. So when in the desert, as the cost of freedom became cumbersome and the supernatural manna no longer satisfied against a memory of constant pleasure and comfort, as the ‘reproaches of Christianity’ became to difficult to bear—the memories and nostalgia of a better time became the enemy, for the good is always the enemy of the best.
There is no doubt that there were good things to reminisce on, and now here in the wilderness, the price for freedom, the effort necessary to shake loose the bands of bondage, the trials that come with overcoming addiction and slavery, and the tasks and work to maintain this discipline, begin to seem more painful than when we only have to worry about one task master.
This was the moment that the leader, Moses, whose will was strong enough for the direction of millions of people, had the courage and vision to break away not only his association with the world, but break off the enslavement of a entire nation. Moses who by Faith ‘refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the People of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures In Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” It is this Moses, who rejected the delusions of the glitter and gold and seduction of ease and pleasure for the hard work of Spiritual Enlightenment and abandonment of what was the epitome of bliss. Because it wasn’t real. He had to be a lie and be in ignorance to enjoy it. He had to pretend to be something he wasn’t to continue in the comforts of Egypt. When we are called of God, when we have a purpose in the Kingdom of Heaven, this world is not our own, we can no longer be blinded by the simulation, but must be awakened to a higher plane of existence beyond a base lifestyle engulfed in the seeking of entertainment, pleasure, comforts, and bliss of this world and the blindness that comes with only attending to the flesh.
By Faith Moses stripped himself of the all ornaments of the world and adorned himself with the ornaments of the Lord, which is a ‘meek and quiet spirit.’
“Now the man Moses was meek, more than any other man on the face of the Earth.” To be “meek, and lowly of heart” means to be truly humble, teachable, gentle, and submissive to the Lord's will—Just like Jesus.
Finding the favor and grace of God comes only with the possession of the greatest character quality that Jesus Christ himself demonstrated for us, that likewise Moses the greatest prophet the world has ever known also owned- that is the quality of humility. Favor without humility fails the grace of God, favor with humility finds the grace of God.
Finding Grace and Truth means the removal and stripping of all the world’s ornaments- those things used to make us look more attractive but have no practical purpose, those things which lift us up in pride and deceive us into believing we have no need of God’s Favor, that we have no need of God’s deliverance, that we have no need of the Presence of God in our lives, ornaments that make us forget the pain and be at peace with our sin and comfortable in the pleasures of the world. Finding Grace means to repent, to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and reject the treasures of the world in exchange for the reproach of being a Christian. When we do so, when we approach God stripped of our pride, stripped of our independence and self sufficiency, stripped of our own understanding, vulnerable, hungry and thirsty for water from the well that never runs dry, thirsty for something more than a seasonal fulfilling, for something greater than self love, for a touch from God; when we approach the King of Heaven this way and pray as Moses prayed just after ‘they stripped themselves of their ornaments’ we find the Grace of God —
“Now therefore I pray thee, if I have found Grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find Grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people. And God said My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give the rest.” (Exodus 33: 6-14)
In this rat race of the corporate controlled Oz we find ourselves in today, where we strive and fight and scratch and claw for the things of this world which cannot satisfy, let us as a nation as the Children of Israel did together, strip ourselves of the deceitfulness of riches and adorn ourselves with the ornaments of God. Let us unanimously approach His throne having seen our erroneous ways and trivial pursuits and seek His face and Grace. If so that we have found the Grace and Truth that is Jesus Christ, let us therefore learn His ways, that we may know Him, that we may find more Grace in His sight.
Moses taught that Grace is a platform for more Grace. If there is anything that we should seek more and more and more of, is it not the Grace of God? The ‘more’ of this world tends only to emptiness- the ‘more’ of God’s Grace is fulfilled with His Presence and His Rest, “and Grace for Grace.”
What a promise. The promise of rest.
God help us to rest in your Presence, and give us ‘Grace for Grace,’ that we may not to hide from your Presence as Adam and Eve did, or run from it as Jonah did, but help us to run to it, to desire it, to seek it, to carry it with us, to be a host and Tabernacle of the Presence of God. Give us the unction Father God, the ‘anointing that destroys the yolk of bondage’ and help us to desire to breathe again the free air of Liberty. Help us to govern our passions and teach our children your ways, help us Father God to understand that it is not our prosperity and ornaments of this world and success in it that justifies us, but that it is by pleasing You, that it is by being adorned with meekness and hosting Your Presence that we are known and justified by You. Help us to put on Christ, help to follow His footsteps, to reject this world, ‘and look for a new city, which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.’ Father God fill us and satisfy us with your Grace and Truth, and the life that is gained by rejecting ‘those base things, those things which are not,’ help us to discover peace and rest that comes only from the possession of Your Truth, that joy and peace found only in believing in Jesus Christ ‘of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,’ whose anointing destroys the yoke of slavery to this world system and replaces it with the rest, satisfaction and light yoke of service to the Kingdom, a service that satisfies and fulfills, and in whose Name we pray,
Amen.