Seeing and Believing

Joining the journey of Israel can help deepen your walk with Yeshua, Jesus.  I am a firm believer in the power of the message of resurrection of Messiah because He saved my life by rewiring my brain with His Words to me on my daily journey from new motherhood, to finding my secure place in His heart as His beloved daughter.  I began by devouring the Bible after meeting my Savior.  But I had to be introduced to Him over a dozen times, and fall on my face in disbelief again and again before I truly BELIEVED.  

When I finally did surrender myself to His leading, I began to embrace the way home to Him.  I have found that reading the Bible week after week, from Genesis to Deuteronomy and from Mathew to Acts, is how I can stay awake and aware of His constant Presence.

Let me tell you the difference between seeing and believing.

In last week’s reading, the “ORDINANCES”were given.  The Ten Words given by God through Moses hand were the commands – the WHAT. People call those the Ten Commandments.  Those are the baseline “do’s and don’ts” of following God.  The ordinances are the “orders” of how to follow Him.  Think of them as lining up children to leave the classroom on a trip to the cafeteria as kindergarteners.  

Those orders were to align us to move forward in an orderly fashion, so the laws themselves can be followed, get it?  But, then whose the leader?  Think of Moses as the principle of the school, not just the classroom.  He has to move an entire nation of twelve tribes of people who have been slaves for four hundred years.  They don’t have a constitution, a Bible, an almanac, a day timer, a telecom system, a compass, a direction, or even land to plant crops.  All they have is a God they cannot see.

Thankfully, Moses saw God and heard His voice in the burning bush.  And, all the people have survived the final plague by putting the blood of the Passover sacrifice on their door-frames. But, they had to leave the place where the miracles happened.  They walked out the doors of those houses and left forever.  Now, what would be next?

When you see the hand of God, your faith is sparked!  The miraculous moment is tangible and real.  But, the moment passes and you are left holding on to a memory and faith has to move from conception to development.  

When Moses SAW God last week, he was seeing the God he already knew!  Seeing God standing on a ‘lake of sapphires’ along with the seventy Elders and his own brother and nephews must have been glorious!  Aaron and his sons had been closer to the miracles personally, so they were able to see Him enough to agree to spend their lives in His service.  But, the seventy Elders who saw Him for themselves for the first time firsthand – it was not enough to keep them believing for even forty days – and that is the lesson I remember each year at this time.  

You see, the next two weeks readings are filled with the “how” of serving God.  These writings of creating the ‘Tent of Meeting’ for God to appear in the midst of the camp are so long and intricate in their description of the revelation God gave to Moses that we often miss what GOD did not reveal to those who were waiting at the foo of the mountain.  The Elders of the Tribes SAW God!   But they did not believe in His ability and desire to protect and care for them.  

And, once they saw Him, but could not show Him to others around them, I believe they created the Golden Calf to prove they had seen something.  An idol is not what saves you, it is what humanity needs to see to believe. Think about this as we read all the details in the vision God gave to Moses about the place God would meet with man.  Every detail is so intricate, Moses saw it.  Every layer so defined, Moses saw it.  Every word God spoke Moses had to translate into a language that would stand the test of time and be carried out with each generation to come.  And God has been faithful to His design.

The beginning of faith is revelation- seeing something worth believing in the first place.  My personal revelation began when I believed – even for a moment – that God could love me enough to come and find me for Himself in Yeshua’s sacrifice.  Then, by encountering God moments of divine intersection over a lifetime, I came to believe what my heart knew was true. I was created by the power of God’s love and my life has its purpose in my looking and longing for more time with Him.  I want more than anything to SEE and BELIEVE that mankind was created to show God’s enduring love for the world.

When I think of these weeks when Moses grew stronger in His faith and the Elders faltered, my heart Goes out to them.  Please be kind to people grappling with believing for themselves.  If they can’t see Him, it’s not because He is not near!  They can’t see because, “without divine vision the people cast off restraint.”  God is the One responsible to reveal Himself.  He is right there for those who are looking for Him.  Our job is to be the best representatives of the messengers of His Words alive among us, lived out in our every day lives.

Don’t just read you Bible, or dissect it, read and live the Bible everyday believing your life is precious and He will guide us all home to Him. 

God is keeping the promise He made to His children.  God has ratified His Covenant with us through Messiah.  You can believe that!