Glimpses of Glory: A 7-Day DevotionalНамуна

Glory > Gain

Take a moment to consider the offer God made to Moses. “Let me alone, that … I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you”. God would destroy the people—yikes—but at the same time, He persisted in his desire to dwell with humanity. In many ways, His offer mirrored what He’d done through Noah: He would hit the restart button.

From Moses’s perspective, the offer probably sounded fair. After all, why should he get punished for the people’s sins? If he accepted this offer, history would think not of Father Abraham, but Father Moses, and he’d get the glory and all the blessings bound to God’s promises. Add to that the sweet relief of not spending his final forty years governing an obstinate group of grumblers through a dusty wilderness. I can see the temptation. It sounded too good to be true.

But Moses refused the offer.

Instead, where God called the Israelites “your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt” (v.7), Moses called them “Your people, whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt” (v.11). God offered Moses the opportunity of a lifetime, but He turned it down without hesitation because he understood the heart of God in two key ways. He recognized that for God to strike down the Israelites, He would (1) put His glory at stake in the eyes of the nations and (2) violate His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To put it simply, Moses valued God’s reputation and His promise - more than he desired his own glory.

Moses responded precisely as God wanted him to. As a result, the people were spared.

We must learn to prioritize God’s glory over our personal gain. Every day we find ourselves confronted by the question of whether we serve God or serve ourselves, and whether we worship the true God atop the mountain or forge our own gods at the base. Our hearts are naturally inclined toward sin and selfishness and we naturally seek those things which appeal to our longing for satisfaction. Pleasure or popularity, prominence or prosperity, we desire them all. Unless we watch out, we might call ourselves “Christians”, when in reality we serve a god made in our own image: whether we perform religious duties to receive praise from others or to obtain something from God. This results not in worship but in self-service and selfishness, wearing masks of religious devotion.

Moses never made it into the Promised Land. Instead, he spent forty years leading a stubborn group of misfits who never said: “Thank you.” Yet he willingly set his own desires aside. He desired God would receive glory above all else, even if it meant sacrificing things that might benefit him.

I wonder, would we do the same?