Exodus 33:12-17

¹² Moses told the LORD, “See, you told me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in my sight.’ ¹³ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now how you do things, so that I may know you in order to find grace in your sight. Consider that this nation is also your people.” ¹⁴ And he said, “My face will go with you, and I will give you rest.” ¹⁵ And he said to him, “If your face will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. ¹⁶ For how should it be known that I have found grace in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are different, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the land?” ¹⁷ And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found grace in my sight, and I know you by name.”

a prayer to be different

Moses’ prayer is the prayer of every godly leader who has tried to make a difference in the world. He wants himself and his people to be different from those who do not know the LORD. If that difference is not there, then there is no sense going on.

This is an intense and challenging time for Moses and Israel. They had just gone through a horrible ordeal because of the rebellion at Sinai. Moses wants some assurance that all the time and life that he has invested will actually matter. He reasons that if God has truly saved him by grace, and called the people of Israel by grace, then it should produce a difference in their lives.

The difference begins here. It starts with asking the LORD who called us to turn us into the people he wants. It is seeking the inheritance that is promised because of God’s grace. We came to the LORD just as we are, expecting forgiveness through Christ. But we cannot stay there. We strive to be changed by that grace.

God’s answer to Moses is reassuring. He said “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found grace in my sight, and I know you by name.” He will finish what he started.

LORD, we thank you for the grace that called us to yourself. We trust that same grace to change us into the different people you want us to be.