Exodus 33

He never leaves us alone. We are always being called to
leave where we are and journey onward/upward into a
greater appreciation of who He is.
The Lord said to Moses, “Depart and go from here…to the land.”
We are always to be hearing the call of God to journey into the
promised land. In that contented bliss of His Spirit, there is always
a longing, whether felt or not, for a closer walk with Him. We are
the people of God, always “on the way,” always seeking “a better…heavenly
country (Heb. 11:16).” Spiritually, there is always a place to travel to
that is “better.” God began promising it to our spiritual ancestors.
It is definite and specific, not nebulous. We can count on it being
there like the promised land of old. To get there requires leaving
where we are.
To be willing to leave where we are requires a certain dissatisfaction
with where we are, a desire for the best. God will never be content to
leave us without the best of all that He can bring us into.

In Exodus 33:2-3, we can see that God doesn’t ask us to make
this journey alone. He is always “there” in the place where He
wants to take us. His angel will be busy driving out the enemies
of our soul long before we arrive in the promised land.
The promised land is a place of conflict and warfare. There
are enemies of God in the place He wants to bring us to. The
fellowship God calls us to experience will bring us face-to-face
with the enemies of God. There is “milk and honey” in the land,
yes, but we still have the battles. God took the Jews from the
captivity of Egypt into the place of blessing, but the place of
blessing is also a place of extreme conflict.

It is always by grace that we journey into the promised land.
God is holy and sees us stubbornly resistant to Him.
His holiness demands that we become other than we are.
There almost seems to be a tension within God. He desires
to be gracious, yet He is holy.
God wants us to appear before Him as we are, without
covering up with jewelry. Jewelry essentially attracts and
distracts. The ornaments were unnecessary with God.
He told them to lose it.
Before they left Egypt, the Jews plundered the Egyptians.
In Exodus 12:35-36, we read that they were given gold.
That is where the jewelry came from. And here we see
them all decked out for the promised land like they’re
waltzing into a party, looking spruce, trying to distance
themselves from each other, elevating themselves in
their eyes in the faceof God. God tunes in to this and says,
“I must distance myself from you because I can’t stand this
about you, how you desire to make yourselves distinct from
one another.”