Affection and Obedience! Moses wanted above all else to be close to God and God honored this fervent desire in Moses’ heart.
Your next question surely must be: “Well, how come Moses seemed to have access and a deeper relationship with God than most others of his generation?”
Individually, each one controls the valve which opens up our closeness to God in our lifetimes.
Jesus, as God the Son, declared: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” – Matthew 11:28
Jesus put no limitation on how close we can draw near to Him. Jesus defined closeness as “come unto Me”. This means we have the permission to come as close as we choose to Him in our affections and in our desire to obey Him.
- John 14:15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
- John 14:21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
How can we understand this in a practical day-by-day living? Let’s use the natural family as our illustration.
In a large family of many children, why is it that some children seem to enjoy more intimacy with their parents as opposed to the other children?
Truth: What are the TWO THINGS that an infant growing into a youth can CONTRIBUTE to their parent’s well being and encouragement? AFFECTION + OBEDIENCE.
Some children will be more grateful, affectionate and obedient than others. The closeness or intimacy of those children to their parents is deeper because they have a greater desire and thus a greater ability and opportunity to be close to them.
So it was with Moses or the other children of God who enjoyed the sweetest relationship with God. Something in these people produced a love of God. Their love for God was expressed in an overwhelming desire to be close to Him, in sweet affection, gratitude and obedience.
Dear Friend, that is exactly why God was able to use Moses so wonderfully. Moses wanted to be as close to God as He possibly could. God accepted his desire and arranged circumstances to allow that intimacy to happen. God was then able to use Moses to impact his generation.
This intimacy with God opened Moses’ heart to God’s leading and sweetest relationship.
This truth may be best illustrated by Moses’ incredibly deep cry of mercy and love for the people of Israel whom God had placed under his care:
- Exodus 32:32 Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.”
That expression is the same that Jesus illustrated. The infinite love of God for humanity which consumed Moses also consumed Jesus.
- Luke 22:41-42 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Commentary: My question to you. Are you able to comprehend, much less explain the concept of infinity, ie., that which is limitless and has no boundaries?
All people are finite created beings. We are only able to process information through the boundaries of Time, Space, Material and our 5 senses: Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell and Touch.
When we finite creatures are confronted with infinite realities, we can only go so far before we reach the edge of our capabilities and fall back exhausted, having attempted to understand things we are not designed to understand.
One example would certainly be all that is contained in the word infinite, eg. such as infinite space. When we begin to think about Creator God, it soon becomes indisputable that He is infinite in all His attributes. He has no limits or restraints and perfectly does all He wills with unlimited power and unlimited wisdom.
Another word which confounds our human limitations would be an accurate definition of the word LOVE. We were created with combined physical and spiritual elements into one being. Is love a self-contained emotion in the heart? Or is love a physical action displayed? The answer: BOTH! Love produces both spiritual and physical realities.
How are these questions valuable in our attempt to answer your question, “Why did God love Moses so much?”
Incredible Truth: God loves you the same as He loves Moses! God is infinite love. God, in keeping with all His other perfect attributes, loves you, me and ALL humanity with an infinite love.
- 1 John 4:8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Since we have now arrived at this place of being fully overwhelmed by the truth that God loves you and me with an infinite love, it is a very small step to take and understand that God loves you and me as much as He loves Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, etc.
Now, let us together take another giant step in an attempt to believe and trust in God’s declaration that He loves you, me and ALL His children as much as He loves Jesus, His only begotten Son!
God’s love is not based upon our worthiness to receive such love. God’s love is grounded in the unassailable truth that LOVE is one of God’s INFINITE ATTRIBUTES which cannot have any boundaries.
The following verse embraces a truth which has the capacity to change your entire view of God and His perfect love for you:
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 For He [God the Father] made Him [Jesus, God the Son] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
What does this truth-verse tell us? God credits ALL of His children with the PERFECT LOVE and all the PERFECT LIFE which Jesus lived on earth!
God’s infinite love and infinite wisdom understood from before the creation of any of our physical universe and before Adam + Eve, that love on our part must be a voluntary choice.
Why must love be voluntary?
Because love can NOT be coerced, it must be voluntarily extended from one being to another being otherwise it is nothing more than servitude or slavery. Love must have a willingness, desire and affection behind its actions or it is NOT love but only duty or service.
God knew when He created mankind in His own image that He would give man the attribute and desire for sovereignty. Only the One true supreme God possesses absolute sovereignty.
Can we see that there could never be two absolute supreme beings in the universe, for eventually those two “WILLS” must collide and be in confllct at some point.
The entire universe is dependent upon ONE SINGLE PERFECTLY WISE and ALL- POWERFUL BEING, otherwise there would be an unresolvable conflict of two wills.
Why is this important?
God created mankind with a “degree” of sovereignty and desire to rule just as God has absolute sovereignty and rulership.
The question then which arose and had to be resolved in the new creation called TIME + SPACE + MATTER is this: Would Adam + Eve, having a created desire to rule, choose and desire to PUT THEMSELVES [in perfect love] UNDER the perfect, righteous and wise rule of their Creator? Or would they choose to “become their own god” and rebel against their perfect loving Creator?
God, who knows all things, knew that Adam and Eve, in an act of “self-love” would choose to reject God’s single command, ATTEMPTING to become their own god independent of Holy Sovereign God’s oversight.
This rebellion is called “sin”. Adam + Eve soon rebelled and sinned against Holy God’s commandment. Adam + Eve had only ONE SINGLE prohibition which they could violate against Sovereign God’s will. They chose this path of rebellion when enticed by the devil, the liar. Their sin plunged the entire human race into the tragedy of death and subjected the entire universe to ultimate destruction.
How might all this explanation help answer your question? The answer lies in another great truth: How does one accurately value something they perceive to be precious?
Is one willing to die for that treasure?
Think deeply about this truth: What is the MOST one can give for anything in this life?
One’s own life! After death one loses any capacity to own or use anything. The value of a treasure lies in its possession. When one dies, everything physically or naturally dies and is left behind.
God’s creation is so valuable to Him. He intertwined His perfect emotional love and commitment to humanity. To keep them in the perfect, loving relationship He desired, He would, by necessity, have to die for them.
To circle all the way back to your original question: Why did God love Moses so much?
God is perfect love. God loved Moses perfectly. The wonder of all this unimaginable beautiful truth is that God loved Moses just as much as He loved His only begotten Son Jesus. Jesus who came to earth to die for Moses, so that Moses could spend all eternity with God as a member of God’s eternal family.
Jesus, likewise, died to pay your deserved death penalty and my deserved death penalty which was required for our sins, so we could be reconciled and draw close to God. Jesus lived the perfect life we should have lived and died the perfect death we should have paid.
Remember our beginning explanation of the infinity of God? God loves infinitely. What does this mean to you and to me? God loves you with the same infinite love with which He loved Moses and now loves you, me and all humanity.
Question: How has your own heart responded to this information? Has this information been turned into wisdom in your heart so that you also want to draw near, like Moses, to God?
Another incredibly astounding wonderful truth in Scripture: Not only are you, me and all humanity loved equally [infinitely] by Holy God, but astonishingly we read the following promise that we shall be like Jesus Christ, Himself, before God the Father for all eternity.
- 1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He [Jesus] is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
Of course, one MUST become a child of God by the voluntary surrender of self to be “born- again” spiritually and changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
Have you been born-again? You cannot become a member of God’s eternal family and eternally rest forever in His infinite love without being born again. Jesus, with no exceptions, declared this to be true:
- John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
If you have been born again, please write and tell us so. If not, please place Jesus’ invitation before you at this moment and cry out to Him until your heart declares: “Yes, Lord Jesus, I come to You. I fully surrender my life to You for Your sovereign control.”
- John 6:37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
Will you NOW come close to Jesus?
All our love to All In Christ
– Jon + Philis + Friends @ WasItForMe.com
