2 Minutes of Hope February 22, 2021
"Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” - Exodus 34:5-7 NKJV
These past few months, the Lord has been constantly reminding me who He is.
Over and over again, He’s been bringing me back to this powerful passage from Exodus where God Himself comes down from Heaven to proclaim His true identity to His servant Moses. A proclamation that still reigns true to this very day.
But this revelation of character wasn’t at the beginning of Moses’ story. Rather, this was at the pinnacle of Moses’ path to fulfilled purpose. To give some context on the passage, this was when Moses was on Mt. Sinai receiving the second set of stone tablets. Talk about grace and goodness abounding. (See Exodus 32-33 for further understanding.)
God had already shown Moses through many signs and wonders who He is. Moses had seen His character through the burning bush, the parting of the Red Sea, the cloud by day, the fire by night, the manna from Heaven, the water from the rock, and to top it all off, Moses saw God’s glory pass by him with his own two eyes.
Yet in this moment, where God would renew His covenant with the Israelites again, God in all His goodness and mercy comes down from Heaven to proclaim His character once and for all. There would be no room for error in judgement of character after these words were spoken.
He proclaims in His own words, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth (faithfulness); keeping mercy and lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; but He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting (avenging) the iniquity (sin, guilt) of the fathers upon the children and the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations [that is, calling the children to account for the sins of their fathers].”
– Exodus 34:6-7 AMP
It is this character that we place our faith. It is in this character that we place our hope. It is in this character that we build our lives.
When we know God intimately, we can walk with our head held high because we know that our confidence rests in a God who can do, “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).
Find hope today in knowing that you do not have to worry about God changing, you do not have to wonder if He will forgive you when you sin. We do not have a God that lives in the world we live in. We have a Creator who is love and truth. In knowing His character, our confidence cannot and should not be placed anywhere else.
Let's Pray...
Heavenly Father, thank you for being the King of King and the Lord of Lords. Thank you for your life-giving Word that is absolute truth that is still speaking to us today. Let these words of your character sink deeply into our hearts today as we choose to place our confidence in your unwavering character.
We give you full permission now to remove the hindrances, blockages and misunderstandings we’ve created about who you are and we choose to walk in the truth of this scripture today and always. Stir up inside of each and every one of us a deeper desire to know you intimately so that we may be transformed into the image of our savior, Jesus Christ. It’s in this name, the name above all names, that we pray, Amen.