Is God Among Us?
“For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”” (Exodus 33:16)
Distinctions – we love to be distinct. Brightly colored cars, eccentric hair styles, and bumper stickers galore, we will find any and every reason to make ourselves different from others. And yet, we all know what inevitably happens. One young man dresses in some strange fashion to be distinct, and he joins a group of people who all dress the exact same way. Mere external formalities do not make man distinct. In fact, only one thing separates one lump of clay from another – if God is with them or not. How does that make one distinct?
First, they are reconciled. God cannot go with any of whom He is not reconciled with. Can two man walk together unless they are agreed? The rebellion of which we once knew and the enmity in which we once harbored must be laid to rest. This can only happen through Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). For all those God chose to walk with, Christ died for and ever lives to pray for (John 17:9). Where some men come to a crossroads to part, God and man come to the cross to unite. From the cross flows an ever-flowing spring where “in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (2 Cor. 5:19)
Second, they are righteous. Those who walk with God become like God. Unlike the nations which go from bad to worse, those who walk with God grow in their love for righteousness. In a world which fixates on the rich and powerful, God’s people focus on the least of these. In a world which focuses on what they can take, God’s people focus on what they can give. Need I go on? Justice, holiness, righteousness, and truth become the defining features of those who walk with God. If we were to take an honest assessment of our lives, would others see friendship with God or not? Would visitors to our churches look at us and say, “God is among these people”? God may be spirit and beyond our range of vision, but you can always see where He’s been by the effects. Can the nations see God among us?
