More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
You need a desk, you need a light, you need your Bible, and you need silence. And you must be firm, deliberate, and uncompromising in preparing a place for your time with God.
Time with the Lord needs to be accompanied by a pen and some paper. You will never regret cultivating this discipline.
God isn’t particular in the least about the place you choose or the amount of time you spend. All He wants is you.
Who were the descendants of Anak? They were giants, a race of huge men. And they scared ten of the spies out of their wits.
Caleb and Joshua
Many a man of God, filled with resentment and revenge, turns the pulpit into a hammer to fight his battles against the rabble. Bad plan. How much better to leave it with God, as did Moses.
Christians have within them the person of the Holy Spirit, who brings a needed restraint and unprecedented control to our lives. He serves as an inner governor, who tells us, “That’s far enough.”
When the nation had arrived at the border of the Promised Land almost four decades before, the people refused to go in because of unbelief. They didn’t believe God could give them the strength to overcome their enemies and defeat the giants who roamed the fields of Canaan. As a result of this disobedience, God said to them, “This whole generation is going to die off; none of the adults will go into the land except Caleb and Joshua.
It was just like a mother who tells her child, “Look, don’t do that again. Don’t do that one more time.” But as soon as the mother returns to her room, the child is doing it one more time.
You see, God had tolerated Moses’ anger, patiently worked with him, honed him, tooled him, and still Moses let his anger flare.
The apostle James offers better counsel than you’ll ever receive on a psychiatrist’s couch. He writes, “Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:19–20). In his heart, Moses must have known that. Deep within, he must have been aware that his own raging temper could not advance the righteous cause of a holy God. Yet through the years, he never allowed his patient Lord to slay that destructive monster within, and in the end it rose up and consumed him.
When you know God’s will and you willfully move in another direction, that is unbelief, plain and simple.
disobedience and unbelief are the two sides of the same coin—a coin of the devil’s mintage. They who disobey do not believe; and they who do not believe disobey.”1
All God’s servant-leaders live in a divine goldfish bowl, as it were. We are on display. If you serve as an officer in your church, if you are known for some leadership position in a Christian institution, you are a public letter displayed before the world. Your act of willful disobedience publicly casts a shadow upon the glory of God, and He is jealous that such a dreadful thing never happen.
God does not look favorably upon the smearing of His glory by His child. He may be longsuffering, but He will not always remain patient. Forgiving? Yes. But never forget, there are times even forgiven sins bear terrible consequences.
The time we spend on this earth is always represented by a small horizontal dash, and that’s all. The person could have lived to be eighty or ninety, but a tombstone wraps up all of life in one little dash.
As I arrived at the last verse of Deuteronomy 34, I didn’t want Moses’ story to end. I wanted to hang on to him for a few more chapters. I didn’t want him to make that final climb up the steep slopes of Pisgah. Do you ever find yourself wanting to cling to a loved one about to make that last journey? Sure you do. That’s part of the flesh deep within us—to keep, not give, to hold on to, not to share. I wanted to hold Moses near and hear his voice just a little longer. I wanted him to linger, but God says, “That’s enough. Now, he is Mine.” And so He escorts him up to the peak and gives him a
...more
You never take a companion along when you travel through death; you go all alone. The Talmud says, “Man is born with his fist clenched, but he dies with his hands open.” You don’t take anything with you; it all stays behind. Moses’ life, not his possessions, was his legacy. He died high up on Mt. Pisgah, and he died all alone.
If you lose a loved one, go ahead and mourn. Cry your eyes out. Don’t weep as those who have no hope, but weep for your loss. Grieve their earthly departures. Get it all out. And then stop.
Moses is the only person in the Bible whom God personally buried. Did you know that? And then the Lord hid the tomb. Why did He do that? Because that grave would have become a second Mecca. They would still be beating a path up Nebo to this day, building shrines, selling popcorn and peanuts, offering all sorts of rides, maybe running a tram up there, with big banners announcing, “Moses’ burial place!” “No way,” the Lord said. “Put him in that grave, seal it over, and conceal it, so they’ll never know where it is.”
The Egyptians had a saying: “To speak the name of the dead is to make him live again.”
But one thing about sensual pleasures: The Bible insists they’re “passing.” They don’t last.
If you are committed to Egypt more than to an Exodus, then you are not committed to God.
“I’ve learned to hold precious things loosely, because it hurts when God pries my fingers and takes them from me.”
“Lord God, You are the One who set me on this course, and until You say otherwise, this is the direction I’m going to walk. My critics are getting louder and more in number and closer. Silence them. Or at least, stop my ears.”
He was buried on some lonely peak on the barren slopes of Mount Pisgah, without so much as a single flower on his grave. He willingly traded the earthly monuments and acclaim, the perks, the power, and the pleasure for a reward in an invisible realm. He cashed it all in—every shekel of it—for a relationship with the living God. It was the best trade anyone could have made. What he lost, he couldn’t have kept anyway, and what he gained, he could never lose. Moses couldn’t do any better than that. Neither can we.
Sometimes we can learn more from the silence of the dead than from the speech of the living.”
