All of us love to do exploits. Everyone wants to accomplish something great. Who doesn’t like to do great things? However, believe me, we all can carry out, not just exploits, but great exploits. There is only one condition for that. We must know our God – the Creator of heaven and earth.
Daniel 11:32b - The people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.
In the book of Daniel, it is said that the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.
You may say – Yes, we know our God, we know Jesus, we know that He is the Creator, He died for our sins and rose again. We know that we can have eternal life if we trust in Him.
Good! But that is the knowledge you have about God. There is a huge difference between knowing God and knowing about God. Even Satan knows about God. He knows that Jesus died for our sins and rose again. However, knowing God refers to our personal and intimate relationship with Him.
We all know the great celebrities and leaders of this world. That is our knowledge about them. However, we do not know them the same way we know our spouses or our children. We know our family members in an intimate way. We know what likes them, what hurts them, their likes, their dislikes, their very personality and everything else. That should be how we must know God.
Only this intimate relationship with God will help us grow strong in Him and do great exploits.
Our depth of our relationship with Him is directly proportional to the great exploits that we can do.
The Israelite community lacked a personal relationship with Him
Exo 19:5-6 - Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”
Exo 19:8 - Then all the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” So Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord.
They had knowledge of God, they had seen His great works and mighty wonders in Egypt. They even showed willingness to obey Him. But they did not know Him personally
Exo 20:18-19 - Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
They just wanted a second-hand relationship with God. They were satisfied to hear from God through the man Moses.
Many of us fall in that category. We often hear people say, “Please pray for me and let me know what the Lord is saying?”
However, among that huge congregation of 6 lakh men alone, there was a small group of people who knew God to some extent. They had a personal relationship with God.
Exodus 24:9-10 - Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very[a] heavens in its clarity.
These 70+ elders saw the manifestation of God. But they could not wait in His presence. They were told to wait while Moses and Joshua went up further. However, tired of waiting, they returned to the Israelites camp and worse still, they built a golden calf.
Exodus 32:4 - And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
There were however two men, Moses and Joshua, who approached even closer to God.
Exodus 24:12-13 - Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.”So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God.
Why was Joshua chosen by Moses? Joshua had a unique relationship with God.
Exodus 33:10-11 - All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.
He was a man who waited on the Lord. The more we know Him, the more we can wait on Him. Waiting will not be bothersome. We would love to be in His presence. This level of intimacy will make you strong in the Lord.
Isaiah 40:31 - But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
There is an intimacy in this relationship with God. It is this level of intimacy that empowers you to do exploits for Him. That is why, the mantle of Moses was passed on to Joshua.
Again, there was one man who knew God face-to-face. He was the one who knew the heart of God. The Lord spoke to him as to His friend.
Exodus 33:10-11 - All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So, the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.
All of us would agree that friendship is special. There are many things which cannot be shared with our parents, spouses or children, but people pour out their hearts to their close friends
Proverbs 18:24b - there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 17:17a - A friend loves at all times
Imagine God speaking to Moses as His friend. What a unique relationship they shared!
There are several instances recorded in the Bible where God poured out His heart to Moses.
Exodus 32:10 - Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.”
Oh! What a relationship! God is saying to Moses, “Let me alone.” God wants to do something but would not unless Moses allows it. Moses could have been happy that God was going to make Him a great nation. He could have left God alone. Moses himself suffered so much because of them (Moses’ cry - Numbers 11:12 - Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child,’ to the land which You swore[e] to their fathers?) Many of us would have left God alone in that case.
But how does Moses respond?
Exodus 32:11-13 - Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’
He pleaded with the Lord. He was much concerned about the Lord’s reputation than his own. What a lovely friend! He didn’t want a great nation for himself. He wanted to build God’s kingdom.
He knew the very heart of God. He knew how much the Lord was a friend of Abraham. He knew that the Lord will perform what He had sworn by His own self. And the result - Exodus 32:14 - So the LORD relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
There was another instance where God’s patience was just about exhausted. He once again expressed His inclination to destroy Israelites and He repeated His offer to make Moses, a new and greater nation. And again, Moses prayed
Numbers 14:14-16 - And now, I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as You have spoken, saying, ‘The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’
Moses pleaded with God once more to stay His hand of judgment, and this appeal was made based on God’s own self-revelation of His long-suffering character (Exodus 34:6). Again God answered his prayer.
It was this close and intimate relationship that Moses had with God that helped him perform great exploits. Deuteronomy 34:10-12 - But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, before Pharaoh, before all his servants, and in all his land, and by all that mighty power and all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.
Thus, the greater your personal relationship with God, the greater your exploits.
So, how to strengthen our personal relationship with God?
More than a formula, it is always love that draws two people closer in a relationship. The same is true in our relationship with the Lord as well.
In Hosea 11:4, the Lord says. “I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love”
So great is the love of the Lord toward us that He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for us (John 3:16).
However, one-sided love doesn’t strengthen a relationship. We need to love Him. The more we love Him, the more we will spend our time reading His Word and talking to Him in prayer. Prayer will no longer be made out of a sense of duty, but it will be our heart-felt communion with our Lord.
Was Joshua told that he must not depart from the tabernacle? No! But it was his love for the Lord. You know how time flies when we spend time with the person whom we love. Same is true with our relationship with Christ.
Mark 12:29 - And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment
Our love for Him must keep growing until we love Him with all our heart, our soul and mind.
This love will prompt us to obey him not just have good feelings about him.
John 14:15 - If you love Me, keep My commandments.
If we want to love God more deeply, we must change our appetite, and we do that by feeding our spirit the Word of God, praying more, meditating on His sufferings and sacrificial death on the cross for our sins, counting our many blessings to name a few.
We must increase our obedience to God’s word, make prayer and talking to God a part of our daily routine and not conform ourselves to the patterns of this world.
That would help us to know Him better. We will understand what pleases Him, what hurts Him and so on. In short, we will get to know the very heart of God. Our relationship with Him will become intimate. Then, we can do great exploits for Him.
