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Thank you so much for letting me sit down to share with you. Today I want to
take you back to the Old Testament. There’s
an absolutely astounding truth that I want you to see
But you have to put a Verse from yesterday together with a Verse from today.
(Exodus) Chapter 29 Verse 45 and 46 from yesterday
God said,“There I would dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know
that I am the Lord, their God who brought them out of Egypt SO THAT
(Remember, what I always teach you to do with those words,you circle them and that shows purpose)
SO THAT I might dwell among them I am the Lord,their God.”
God says,“Listen,I brought you out of Egypt for two purposes: Number one to
bring you out of Egypt to bring you into the land
full of milk and honey. He brings us out of sin to bring us into blessing and prosperity.”
But He said, “Secondly, I brought you out of Egypt, I brought you out of sin
so that I might dwell among you.”
So God has two purposes in bringing us out of a life of sin and that's
what Egypt represents in our life.
His two purposes are: Number One, to bring us into blessing and Number Two
because he wants to be with us.
He wants to enjoy us and He wants us to enjoy Him. He wants a relationship
Now, He showed his purpose.
But then we get into this horrible situation of the golden calf and all of the sin.
And we get down near the end of our reading today in (Exodus) Chapter 33
Beginning with Verse 1: “Then the Lord said to Moses leave this place you and the people
you brought up out of Egypt and go up into the land I promised on oath to
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants. I will send
an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the
Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites
go up to the land flowing with milk and honey.
But I will not go with you because you are a stiff-necked people.
and I might destroy you.”
You can almost hear God's heart breaking.
And this is the principle:
When as a Christian, we don't live right
God still says, “I’ll bless you. I’ll
I’ll do what I said,‘When you're faithless I will be faithful.’
I will bring you into blessing. I will bring you into prosperity but,
He said,‘We're not going to have that relationship that I wanted. I won't go with you.”
Now, brothers and sisters, to me that’s maybe the saddest passage of Scripture
in the entire Bible.
You can almost hear tears coming down the face of God.
God says, “I'll do everything I promised to you because even when your faith was
Unfaithful, I will keep my promises. But I won’t go with you.”
I ask you today
when He brought us out of sin was it just to bring us
into an abundant life? Jesus said,“I came that you might have life and life more abundantly.”
Was deliverance from sin just so that we could be blessed? Just so that we could prosper?
Prosperity is wonderful!
The blessings are wonderful!
But can we also recognize that there's another “so that?”
That God wants to have a relationship with us.
That God wants to be with us
I believe in prosperity. I believe that it is God’s will to prosper and bless us.
But I also believe it's God's will
to love us and have a relationship with us,
to hang out with us to enjoy us and for us to enjoy Him.
I challenge you today
make sure that you don't live a life that would make God sad.
Make sure that you don't live a life where God is in a position where He would look
at you like the people of Israel and say, “Alright
I'll send an angel ahead of you to protect you and help you and bring your
deliverance and bring your victory and I will
fulfill all the promises that I've made to your life but
we're not going to get to spend a lot of time together,
we're not going to hang out together.
You see, we do need to live a holy life brothers and sisters:
the drinking needs to stop
the gambling of Christians needs to stop. The ***
needs to stop. The lying, the cheating and stealing, all of that stuff
We have been set free from the bondage of sin
not just so that we could have an abundant life style
But so that we can have a life with Him.
Please make sure you get both sides of the blessing
not just the prosperity.
but the greatest blessing of all:
Its His presence