WHAT DOES GOD WANT?
By
Nita Johnson
I love it when Jesus comes, and says, “I
want to reveal My heart in a particular area to My people.” Then you
know the message you are giving is the most important thing you could
possibly say at that particular moment in time. This message is of that
nature and something very special from His heart for you.
I grew up in a state where tornadoes are
very common. When a tornado has been sighted and about ready to rip
through your city, the parents gather their children under their wings
and instruct them again in what to do when a tornado lands. Of utmost
concern in the parents' hearts is to know that their children will be
safe, protected, and near. They do not care about the house, the cars,
or anything else.
We are heading into some very troubled
seas. Our Father, out of His great love, is doing the very same thing
that earthly parents would do. He is calling His children to His side,
and He wants you to stay very close to Him. He wants to know that you
are going to be safe. What an incredible Father He is. His ways of
protecting us are different than our natural parents and so much higher.
(Is 55:9) I love His ways.
One thing we see in the life of Moses is
that the more he saw the manifestation of God, the more he longed to
know Him. He was given the privilege of seeing very high things. He ate
and drank with God. He saw Him. He sat before Him, stayed in His
presence, and learned to make God the very subsistence of his life. The
Bible does not say that the more he saw Him, the more he wanted to see
Him. Rather, it says that the more he saw Him, the more he wanted to
know Him. (Ex 33:13) That is what comes with seeing the Lord. It stirs
something deep inside. I love the song that we sang this evening, “Lord,
I Want to Know You More.” I used to sing that song by the hour. Moses
lived to want to know God. In Exodus 33:13, we hear one of the most
incredible prayers in all of Scripture.
Exodus 33:12-13 Amp. Moses said to the Lord, See, You say to me,
Bring up this people, but You have not
let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You said, I know you by name
and you have also found favor in My sight. Now therefore, I pray You,
if I have found favor in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may
know You [progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with You, perceiving and recognizing and
understanding more strongly and
clearly] and that I may find favor in Your sight. And [Lord, do]
consider that this nation is Your people.
Moses asked the Lord to show and help him
understand His way, that he might know Him. Entering into intimacy with
God corresponds with understanding His way. The Bible asks us, “Can two
walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3) That question was
asked by the Lord Himself and he is still asking for the purpose of
drawing our attention to our willingness to agree with Him. If a husband
and wife are not in agreement in the way they want to raise their
children, then arguments, discord, and troublesome times are sparked.
The parents and the children are miserable, and no one is growing
normally. If two are not in agreement, they cannot walk together.
However, Nevertheless concerning the Lord, if you understand ways, you
will find your heart coming into agreement with Him.
The problem with the Church today is that
it has essentially been a prayerless Church. They have tried to
understand God's ways with their mind, which is not possible. It takes
intimacy. It takes opening your heart to the heart of God and the Spirit
of Revelation being released from His heart to yours. Although God's
communication can frequently come into your heart and understanding
through words, His highest communication is the impartation of the
essence of His being to the essence of your being. He does it through
the heart. That is why the Bible says to “keep and guard your heart with
all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flows the
springs of life.” (Prov 4:23
Amp.) When you allow your heart to get embittered, you block the
knowledge of God because He speaks to you and reveals Himself through
your heart. If your heart is bound up in bitterness, unforgiveness,
hate, anger, unbelief,
distrust, and such things, you block the revelation of God. You hinder
receiving the understanding of God. You prevent the very Word of God
from entering into your heart and soul as He longs to impart to you His
very essence.
That is why I like it when Jesus appears
to me because when He reveals to me what He has to say, He also imparts
the very essence of His being and life into me. It is not just words,
but it is an impartation that helps my whole being understand Him. That
is what Moses was crying out for. He did not say, “Lord, if I have found
favor in Your sight, give me two or three new tents because we're
growing out of the one we use for the tent of meeting. And Lord, we'd
like a couple of camels. Oh, and incidentally, we're having family
problems at home. Would You go deal with my wife?” After he had received
revelation of God, all that came out of his heart was, “I want to know
You! I want to know Your way, that I might find favor in Your sight. I
want to know You, deeply and intimately!” Why did He want to know God?
That he might find favor in His sight to know Him more. Why did He want
to know God's ways? That he might find
favor in His sight to know Him more.
Moses keyed in on the most important focus
in all of life, and it only took him eighty years. He had heard about
God by the hearing of his ear. He was taught about the God of their
fathers. Yet, ponder this for a moment: after years of hearing about
Yahveh, he now found himself beholding Him. This changed everything.
Everything inside of Moses and around the circumference of his life
changed because he saw God. He could never live again as he once had. It
was no longer about the hearing of the ear, rather, it became about the
knowing of the heart.
When men say to me, “Well, we leave the
praying to the women—they're the spiritual ones,” then I remind them
about men like Moses, Elijah, John the Beloved, and John the Baptist.
Who are the spiritual giants in the Word of God? They are the men. God
has created men to bear the priesthood of the Lord. He has created the
heart of the man to love God exceedingly, so much so that it calls the
wife to further learn God through her husband.
Moses was changed, transfigured, and
renewed. He could no longer do what he used to do, nor could he do it
the old way any more. It was no longer about hearing about God; now he
has seen the face of God. His heart has been transformed by the
impartation of the very essence and life of the One who he has loved.
Now he knows the One he has heard about, respected, and tried to
understand because God has imparted Himself to him. This is one of the
most awesome truths you will ever hear out of the Word of God. God
trusted this man Moses with a revelation of Himself. What more could a
man want in life than what Moses was given? A man would give all that he
has to stand face to face to God.
Moses found favor in His sight. He was a
man of great nobility in the Spirit and of great character in the
natural. At the point when he asked God to show him His way, he had not
yet seen the greatest and highest of what he was created to behold,
although God had revealed Himself to him magnanimously. Do you know that
you also were created to see, behold, understand, and receive the very
life and essence of God's regal being? You also were created to see Him,
stand before Him, and know Him. God makes every man to whom He reveals
Himself a man of noble character. And so it was with Moses. After
receiving the revelation of God, the very next thing we see is that
Moses was willing to give his life for Israel. He went through season
after season of intercession, repentance, and pleading with God for
these people until he was brought to the place that he was willing to
lay his very own life on the altar for the people of God.
Because of the character that God formed in this man, He was willing to
reveal to him the highest of Himself.
...to be continued next week.
In Him
Nita Johnson |
