Hosting the Presence

by Bill Johnson

  3

  The Lie of Insignificance

  After God gave Moses a most impossible assignment, Moses asked God the question, “Who am I?” (Exod. 3:11). The same question has been asked countless times since. Any time we look to ourselves, we will buy into the lie of insignificance. Moses knew he lacked all the necessary qualifications that one should have to be used by God for something so significant as leading God’s own people out of slavery into freedom. When God chooses any of us for something like this, the same question should come to mind. It will if we see the call of God correctly. But God, knowing Moses intimately, was neither troubled nor impressed with who Moses was or wasn’t. It was a non-essential. “Certainly I will be with you” was God’s reply (Exod. 3:12).

  Initially it looks like God ignored Moses’ “Who am I?” question. But perhaps He didn’t. It seems that he was letting Moses know that his whole identity was not to be in his skills, training, or popularity. It wasn’t his gifts or even his anointing. It boiled down to one thing: “You’re the one I want to be with.” Who was Moses? The guy God liked to hang around. Moses may not have known who he was. But God knew whose he was.

  Both qualifications and significance appear different here on earth than from Heaven’s perspective. Just as humility welcomes exaltation, so weakness qualifies us for strength. And striving for significance will actually undermine our significance. When Jesus wanted to be baptized in water by John, John knew he wasn’t qualified (see Matt. 3:14). But when you’re willing to do what you’re unqualified to do, that’s what qualifies you. And it was the same for Moses. But the deciding factor on Moses’ qualifications went beyond even his willingness to obey. It came down to one thing—who would go with Him.

  A Journey Beyond Reason

  Many if not most Jews hold Moses in the highest place of respect as compared with any other individual in their history. And for good reason. He brought the Law to them (the Word from God), he led them through the wilderness to their inheritance, and equal in importance from my perspective, he modeled a yielded life. His encounters with God remain a high-water mark.

  Moses was God’s answer to Israel’s cry for deliverance. God often answers the prayers of His people by raising up a person He favors.

  So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them (Exodus 2:24-25).

  The very next verse says, “Now Moses….” God did the same thing many years later in making David king of Israel.

  And David realized that the Lord had established him as king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom for the sake of His people Israel (2 Samuel 5:12).

  David experienced the favor of God in extraordinary ways, all because of His intended “trickle-down effect,” although in God’s Kingdom, things do not diminish as they trickle down. When Solomon became king, he spoke of God’s blessing on Israel because they were filled with joy and gladness as a result of God’s choice of David as their leader.

  Then they went to their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had shown to David His servant and to Israel His people (1 Kings 8:66).

  The point is this: God often chooses people knowing that they are the key to touching other people’s lives. Everyone reading this book was chosen first because of God’s love for you. But make no mistake. You are uniquely positioned in this world because of the cry of other people. His favor is upon you so you can be a part of His plan of distributing that same favor to others.

  When it says He took notice of them, He used the Hebrew word yada. This is sometimes used to describe intimate relationships. It is the word that means to know. But it means more than a grasping of concepts mentally. It emphasizes experience as an essential part of knowing. God took notice of Israel by setting them up to become a nation that God would know, who in the same way would experientially know their God. He put them in a place of extreme favor by raising up a man of extreme favor. What He was about to do to Moses, He was planning to do through Moses—bring a nation into significance through real worship. A deep place of intimacy with God was going to open in a way that had never been experienced by a man, let alone a nation. It would be up to Israel to take advantage of such an invitation.

  The Man Beyond Reason

  Moses lived for 120 years—40 years in Pharaoh’s house raised as a son, 40 years in the wilderness leading sheep, and 40 years leading Israel to the Promised Land. If the first 80 years weren’t extreme enough, from the palace to the wilderness, the last 40 years were even more so—success and failure, visitations and encounters with God followed by horrible run-ins with the demonic realm, the worship of false gods and the corresponding devilish activity. His conversation with Pharaoh alone is enough on which to write a book. God actually told Moses, “I have made you as God to Pharaoh” (Exod. 7:1 NKJV). That’s quite a statement for God to say to someone. Unlike anyone previous, God positioned Himself to do as Moses acted and/or declared. It’s a rare thing to find God so willing to make Himself vulnerable to a man. But it is His heart to have that kind of relationship with man. All meaningful relationships require such vulnerability.

  Moses was about to become a prototype. Of no one else did God ever say, “Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses,whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deut. 34:10, emphasis mine). Moses is now taking his place in history alongside Abraham, who God called His friend. But the description He has for His relationship with Moses has a bit more intimacy implied—face to face.

  God draws us into our destinies by revealing Himself to us. It is the Spirit of revelation where it matters most. Such a revelation creates greater hunger in us—hunger that can only be satisfied by Him. Revelation comes piece by piece, layer upon layer, to generation after generation. Moses stepped into a dimension of God that was new to humankind.

  God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Lord, I did not make Myself known to them” (Exododus 6:2-3,).

  God revealed Himself to Moses in a way that not even Abraham, the father of faith, had received. And God was letting Moses know the place of favor he had entered into. Each bit of increased understanding is both an invitation for relationship and a new high-water mark to be sustained by the following generation.

  The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 29:29).

  In other words, Moses inherited the revelation of God’s nature that He gave to Abraham. He knew already that God was the Almighty One. But now Moses would receive an additional insight that would shape Israel’s entire future. God revealed Himself as Lord, which is translated Yhvh, or Jehovah, the proper name of the God of Israel. This would be the name by which God would be known from this point on by His chosen people.

  Revelation is initially for relationship and ultimately for the transformation of our lives. We are transformed by a renewed mind (see Rom. 12:2). And transformed people transform cities.

  God is not that interested in our increased understanding of concepts if there’s no relationship increasing with it. When God gives us revelation, He is inviting us to a new place of experience—knowing Him. “To know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19). This verse states that we can know, by experience, what surpasses knowledge or more specifically, comprehension.

  Moses’ role was a frightening one for sure. But he was unique—unique in the sense that he responded to God as few have in history. My football coach would have described him as one who gave 110 percent—more than what is seemingly possible. The verse “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14) comes to mind in this context. His response to God moved Him out of the what’s possible position to a highly favored position. So much of the increased favor we get from Go
d is really according to what we’ve done with the favor we already have. Moses had been called, but now he was chosen. He was one who took what God offered and ran with it with what some might consider reckless abandon.

  Remember now, Moses was the one God liked to be with. What kind of assignment did God give to him? We know he was to bring Israel out of Egypt, out of the place of slavery to freedom. But what really was the heart of the assignment? “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.” This is repeated numerous times (see Exod. 7:16; 8:1,20; 9:1,13; 10:3). This word serve is also used for the word “worship.” Israel has a wonderful picture of the combination of work and worship in their experience that is rare in the church’s understanding today. The specific focus of this call was for Moses to bring Israel out of Egypt’s captivity into another place in order that they might worship God with sacrifices. It is appropriate that the one who would one day become a face-to-face man would be the one with this assignment.

  Presence and Worship

  King David would later discover some things about God’s response to worship that were unknown in Moses’ time. Each generation has access to more than the previous. It is God’s law of compound interest. Specifically, David recognized how God responds to the praises of His people. God responds with His Presence—He comes. This call of God upon the nation of Israel was to leave Egypt in order to worship. They were becoming a people who would be known by the Presence of God. He would become the distinguishing factor.

  God’s heart was for His entire nation of Israel to become priests. In fact, He commanded Moses to tell Israel of His desire. “And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6). Priests minister to God. The plan of God having a people of His Presence was well underway.

  Worship is powerful for many reasons. One of the most important is that we always become like the One we worship. This by itself would take Israel to new levels. But this call of God upon the nation of God would not go unnoticed.

  The devil is very afraid of a worshiping people. He actually doesn’t mind complacent worship, as it seems to work opposite to the real thing—it deadens our sensitivities to the Holy Spirit of God. It works completely opposite to the effects of sold out, passionate worship. Complacent worship is an oxymoron.

  Satan’s strategy against God’s people and their call as God’s intimates has never been clearer than when he revealed his hand through Pharaoh’s words:

  Go, sacrifice to your God within the land (Exodus 8:25).

  Convenience and sacrifice cannot coexist. The going is a sacrifice, and a non-sacrificial people are of no consequence to the devil. The enemy knows there’s power in the offering and will do whatever he can to distract us from giving it. Sometimes we fail to reach our destiny because we insist on it happening where we are—within reason, with little effort involved on our end. We often cannot get to a new place in worship until we get to a new place in God. I’ve heard so many people say through the years, “If it is God’s will to move powerfully in my life (or church) He knows we’re hungry, and He knows where we are.” Foolishness! He’s not a cosmic bellhop, bouncing around the universe to fulfill our every wish. He has a plan. And we must move into His plan. Wise men still travel, both in the natural and figuratively speaking.

  I will let you go…only you shall not go very far away (Exodus 8:28).

  The fear of fanaticism has kept many believers from their destiny. The only way to follow the One who died on the Cross in our place is to mirror His devotion! The Extreme One is calling out to extreme ones to come and follow Him. It is with that group He will change the world. Deep still calls to deep—the deep of God is still looking for people who have a similar depth in their hearts to respond equally to Him (see Ps. 42:7). Wasn’t it the one with no depth in himself that Jesus warned us of in the parable of the seed and the sower? “…Yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away” (Matt. 13:21).

  Go now, you who are men, and serve the Lord (Exodus 10:11 NKJV).

  Nothing is as fierce an opponent to the powers of darkness as the unified offering to God from multiple generations. This is one of the places where we see the mystery of compound interest in effect in the things of the Spirit. The fact that the devil puts so much effort into dividing the family unit and splintering the generations should testify to us of its importance. It has become all too common for one member of the family to stand out as the spiritual one, while the rest of the family is known for complacency. Tragically, the spiritual one often gets exalted in pride, which brings division, or they lower the standard of their passion to fit the lowest common denominator in the family. Neither route is effective.

  “Who Am I?”

  Burn with passion no matter what, but maintain humility, being the servant of all. The momentum gained through the generations working together creates a spiritual wealth that truly makes nothing impossible for those who believe.1 Even the unity outside of Christ is powerful. Consider Babel.

  They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven….” Lord said, “Behold, they are one people…and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:4,6).

  When we add the supernatural power of the resurrected Christ to a people unified to His purpose and one another, nothing they purpose to do will be impossible for them.

  Go, serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be kept back. Let your little ones also go with you (Exodus 10:24 NKJV).

  This verse says a lot. At this point the devil was even willing to give up his immediate plan to influence and control their children if he could still manage their money. The New Testament unveils the power of this issue, saying greed is idolatry (see Col. 3:5). What kind of offering of importance can I possibly give to God that doesn’t include my money or possessions? Nothing impressive. The offering from convenience protects form, ritual, and image. None of these things threaten the devil. He’ll even attend the meetings where such priorities exist. And strangely, he’ll go unnoticed. True worship involves my whole being. It is physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and financial. It involves my relationships and my family, and it has a major impact on the boundaries I’ve set for how I want to live. Worship has a complete focus—God and His worth. It really is all about Him. It’s about Presence. Israel, a generation of slaves at this point, was called to greatness. And their first step into such greatness was to worship Him extravagantly!

  Go, serve the Lord as you have said (Exodus 12:31 NKJV).

  Every plague, every act of violence and opposition to the enemies of God are simply God sparing no expense to preserve what is important to Him—an intimate people who worship. Mike Bickle says it best—all of God’s judgments are aimed at that which interferes with love. But this part of the story doesn’t end here. We’ve seen that people are called to put everything on the line as they seek to follow God as worshipers. Just a few verses later we see how God rewarded them. “And the Lord had given the people favor…thus they plundered the Egyptians” (Exod. 12:36). Just when you think you gave up everything to follow God, He gives you more to offer.

  The Water Rises Higher

  Israel’s journey is wild and long. And they finally make it into His land of promises. But it is the life of Moses I want us to learn from first. He was to become the example of something a nation could enter into. To emphasize this point he even describes his prophetic anointing as something that should be for everyone. “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” (Num. 11:29). Moses was a prototype in that he modeled a lifestyle that was above the Law. Not in the sense that the Law didn’t apply to him. But he was above the Law in the sense that he had access to the presence of God in a way that was forbidden by the Law, even for the tribe of priests, the Levites. As such there’s a part of Moses’ lifestyle that gives a propheti
c picture of what would be possible under the new covenant that was yet to come.

  As I look at Israel’s journey and the experiences with God from the many leaders in the Old Testament, Exodus 33 is the Bible’s standout chapter in my perspective. Moses had several face-to-face encounters with God. But only one time that he came down from his meeting with God on the mountain did his face shine with the Presence of God. He literally radiated God’s Presence (see Exod. 34:30). Not until Jesus, on the Mount of Transfiguration, would we see that phenomenon again (see Matt. 17:2). (But with Jesus, even His clothes shone with God’s glory.)

  There was one significant difference in the outcome of this encounter with God. This is the time he asked to see the glory of God, and God let all His goodness pass before his eyes (see Exod. 33:19). The outcome was that Moses’ face shone because of seeing God’s goodness. A revelation of God’s goodness will change our countenance. God wants to change the face of His Church once again through a revelation of His goodness. He longs to raise up a people who will not just carry good news in the form of words. He longs to raise up a people who carry the good news in power, which is a Person (see 1 Cor. 4:20). It’s Presence.

  We must expect superior things from a superior covenant.

  But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? (2 Corinthians 3:7-8)