Presence

 For how shall it be known that I have found favour in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?"
Exodus 33:16 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/exo.33.16.ESV

If God is for us, who can be against us? Conversely, if God is against us, who can be for us? If God was going to be against His people, Moses didn't want to lead them.

I love Moses' intercession for his people. God threatened not to go into the promised land with His rebellious people. Moses replied that if God wasn't going, he wasn't either.

I'm reminded of when Israel fought the Philistines in their own strength as a mother named her newborn 'Ichabod'- 'the glory has departed'. If our glorious God doesn't fight our corner, we're lost. It might feel like God's people lose anyway because of persecution, but our inheritance is eternal, not in this temporal world that God will destroy.

As the Israelites couldn't have entered the promised land without the presence of God going with them, so we can't make the new creation without God being with us. God isn't just the means to the end of making paradise. God is the end of the journey, the One who is worthy of all of our worship and praise.

'Dear Father God, like Moses, we know that without You, we can't do anything. So please be with us and grant us success in our labours for You. In Christ's name, amen'

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