The Best Thing A Christian Can Offer the World

In Exodus 33 we are introduced to Moses' prayer life and relationship with the Lord. He had a tent far off from the camp where God would meet with Moses and speak to him as a friend.

The next thing we see is an inside look at that conversation. Some call this Moses' intercessory prayer which I believe it is. 
Exodus 33:12–16 (ESV) Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 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?”

Notice the desire of Moses' heart! He has come so far. This man wanted to save Israel his way and with his strength thinking that people would reason God was using him to deliver them. Acts 7 makes this abundantly clear referring to his killing of the Egyptian slave master:
Acts 7:25 (ESV) He (Moses) supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.

This Moses in Exodus 33 is a far cry from that hot-headed presumptuous man dwelling in Egyptian royalty. Look closely at his desire for leading God's people:

Exodus 33:13 (ESV) Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”

Moses' prays for God to show him His ways. Why? So that he might know the Lord! For what reason? So that the favor of God would be with him. The word in Hebrew for "favor" can also be translated, "grace." 

Moses came to some really great conclusions here. First he understands the most important quality any leader can have for God's people is KNOWING GOD! He understands that all we know of God is by God's grace! And finally, he knows that knowing God is understanding his ways! We do not know God apart from His ways - the way we should live, the way we should spend our money, treat our bodies, love our neighbors. That is the sure sign of knowing God - obeying His ways!

Jesus said this:

John 14:21 (ESV) Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

Moses knows this is the greatest gift he can offer to the world is to know God and follow His ways. 

Christians, the same is true for us! The world does not need our egos and weird Christianized forms of life. The world does not need our judgments over their ways of life compared to our own! Yet how often that is exactly the major thing we have given the world and they have rejected it completely. 

No. The world needs Christians who KNOW GOD and prove it by OBEDIENCE to His word for THEIR LIVES. We are not to push our way on others. We are to live as God wants because He loves us and we love Him. 

Notice later that Moses is clear why He wants God's presence with him to reveal God's ways in the power of God's grace... He says it later:

Exodus 33:16 (ESV) 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?”

It is the presence of God with us Christians - leading us to do life His way and know Him as a loving caring Father that shows the world we are distinct, we have a way of life that is promising to all around us. We are to be attractions to a world lost in sin that God saves and redeems and beautifies the wanderers of this dark world. 

But it all begins with prayer, as it did with Moses, that God would reveal Himself and share His manifest presence with him. 

THAT is a prayer worth praying, because it is a prayer God answers quickly. There is no delay: God says in Verse 14, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Ah the REST that comes from knowing God is with you and will show you His ways and lead you in the path of obedience. The rest of knowing God is committed to your development. The rest of knowing He is always only a prayer away from being right there with you.

Always.