Thursday, August 11, 2016

Aug 12 - REAL PROMISED LAND - Numbers 27:12-13

      12 The Lord said to Moses, “Go up this mountain of the Abarim range, and see the land that I have given to the Israelites. 13 When you have seen it, you also shall be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was

          Numbers 27


Moses got to see the Promised Land. 


He didn't get to go in, of course. He rebelled. (We take our rebellion too lightly. It eventually cost the Son of God his life. Rebellion is not light.) 

Nevertheless, in an act of grace, Moses at least got to see the Promised Land. 

I will contend, though, that Moses had already seen The Promised Land. (Notice: I capitalized the word "The.") 

The true and eternal Promised Land really has nothing to do with a place. It has to do with a "person" and a relationship. When Revelation 21 gives us the final glimpse of what "heaven," eternity, the New Jerusalem, and The Promised Land look like, it says, "behold the home of God is among mortals."

Wait ... what does it say? "Heaven" is when God is near us, among us, with us. (By implication, then, Hell is conversely when we are not near or with God.)

Now, was Moses ever "with" God along this Exodus journey? Absolutely! Moses connected more deeply with God than perhaps any human in history. His face would literally glow from the close encounters. 

Like all of us fleshly humans, Moses kept focusing on an earthly prize. Thus, he devalued the greatest prize of all -- his ongoing personal relationship with God. 

How do we keep from devaluing this greatest prize in creation?

One step is to remember God's grace. He let a weak human see a godly prize on earth ... and God still gave him something bigger. That means that God care about your time on earth. And yet He's fully focused on the true prize! And Moses received it. He is one of those few that Scripture absolutely shows us as being in heaven -- he and Elijah showed up to bless and encourage Jesus at the Transfiguration. Meaning? Moses' Promised Land wasn't on earth ... is yours?

In Christ's Love,

a guy who wants

to focus on heaven

and get earth thrown-in,

rather than focusing on earth

and getting neither

(CS Lewis said something

like that too!)

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