March 5
‘And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ Matthew 28:20
Bible reading: Exodus 33:12-17(2) (Go to the Bible passage)
God had told Moses to lead the people. Therefore Moses asked God, 'Who will You send with me?'
When Jesus gave His disciples the great commission to make disciples of all nations, He said, ‘And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20).
The disciples knew Who Jesus was. They had come to know Him, first as a person and later more and more as the Messiah. After Easter they had met Him as the risen Lord. And the Lord had given them the comforting encouragement that He would always be with them.
In the Acts of the apostles can be read that He indeed went with them: Jesus confirmed the word they were speaking with the same signs that He had performed when He was still on earth. The believers knew that they did not do this themselves, as is evident in their prayers: ‘Lord, enable Your servants to speak Your word with great boldness (by) stretching Your hand out to heal’(Acts 4:29,30a).
When God had called Moses - to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land - He had told him, ‘I will be with you’ (Exodus 3:12). Was that not sufficient? And besides, had God not demonstrated repeatedly that He was with Moses? Why then did Moses say now, ‘lf Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here’? Was he not entitled to assume that God would go with him?
Moses was grateful for all God’s promises, but the divine promise that He will be with us, is not enough. In our daily lives, let us please not go up unless we experience His Presence. For the assumed Presence of God has already done far too much harm throughout the centuries, to ourselves and to so many around us.

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