A Powerful Posture is a humble one!

As a young man reading the Bible I always wanted to be like the men in the Bible. I've always aspired to be someone that is worth recognition in scripture. I thought to myself; if God is going to write another Bible I want to be one of the people that has their own chapter like Samuel, Joshua and so on and so forth. Well, after my desire I began to say myself "well whats so special about the men that have their own chapter's: why are they worth mentioning?" After reading about strong men in scripture there is a certain attribute that they all have in common. They all know how to bow before the Lord, they are no strangers to the Lord, they all inquire of God in every situation, good and bad and spend lots of time "facedown". Facedown meaning reading and fasting, seeking God for an answer. In their persuit of Christ came another attribute; the love of Christ, a strong love. For at first how can you really love Christ if you don't persue Him. Let's be real, without the persuit of Christ how can one say they love Christ when we can't even see or touch Him. These two characteristics; a strong hunger for Christ and a strong love for the Lord are what the great men in scripture have in common. These two attributes have brought plenty out from a dark and gloomy past or one with a faint chance for success. Take David and Moses for example. If you recall in the story of David, when Samuel came to anoint a king, David never came into the mind of his father and when David was sent for he was out tending to sheep. A person tending to sheep doesn't sound like one that is going to be a king, does he? But because of God's favor, David's persuit of Christ and his Love for the Lord, he was able to excel far beyond what his beginning would suggest he was capable of achieving. In other words, normally sheep tenders led a life of mediocrity but David persued and loved the Lord so he prospered far beyond the life of a normal sheep tender. Now Moses was a murderer, he had killed a man. Furthermore, he was once apart of the family of people that kept the hebrews captive. But God favored Moses, and Moses was a man who persued God and Loved the Lord very much. The Bible even states of the two men that David was a man after God's own heart who would do anything the Lord told him to do and Moses was a man who was the most humblest on the face of the Earth. Although, these men had a past life that was not very promising their persuit and love for God enabled them to do great things worth mentioning in scripture. In the book of Numbers, I must admit I was very impressed with the posture of Moses, he really blew my mind. His behavior and conduct was just admirable. Moses was a man who set the people free from captivitiy and led them throughtout the desert for forty years. Now "these people" Moses led were impatient, disrespectful, irreverent and selfish to say the least. Words can not describe how disobedient "these people" were to Moses, a prophet of the Lord. On many many occasions "these people" rose up against Moses to take away his authority and kill him. Yet inspite of their foolishness everytime "these people" came against him the Bible says Moses went "facedown", seeking God for forgiveness on behalf of the people that rose up against him. Now put yourself in Moses' shoes for one second; You are the leader of a people you rescued from hundreds of years, 400 to be exact, of slavery. "These people" have seen miracles performed by God that no other person in the history of mankind have seen, from the splitting of the Red Sea, to the curses of Pharoah, to the manna falling from the sky to many other things. But still when things went wrong they had the nerve to want to kill you. Knowing yourself, you probably would of told more then one person off- but Moses stayed faithful. Look at Numbers 16:1-4. In the scripture, Levite people, a people who were set aside for Kingdom Ministry people who dealt with setting up the Tent of Meeting, in today's time these people would be similar to people with some type of authority in the church, rose up against Moses. Verse 4 says "When Moses heard this, he fell facedown". Wow. Moses didn't even see it happen with his own eyes, he just heard someone was talking smack and he began to pray for the person. Now look at Numbers 16: 20-22, when the Lord arrived to deal with the people who had rose against him, Moses and Aaron both fell facedown on behalf of the people. Furthermore, "these people" grumbled against Moses again right after God had dealt with the last group of people that rose against Moses. As soon as the people rebelled against Moses he again fell facedown for the people. Now look at verses 48-50. The Bible says "he stood between the living and the dead". That phrase is exactly what Moses did in prayer, had it not been for Moses' prayer the rebellious people would have been slayed and judged by the Lord. Isn't that amazing, that we as people from a disgusting background, who deserved death because of our own deeds, through Christ can save others from death. There are people in my family who are sinful in every way form and fashion but because of my prayers will not die. The Lord loves me that much that he will pardon rebellious people simply because I asked him. Getting back to Moses, if you were to read the whole 16th chapter of Numbers you will see that everytime the people came against Moses before Moses could get his facedown God was ready to send the plague upon the sinful people. Time and time again when the people came against Moses, God was right there appearing before the people to destroy them. But Moses never failed to get facedown when being confronted. I've asked myself why, after coming to that revealation. Why did Moses pray for the people that wanted to kill him? Well if you look at Numbers 17:5 there you'll find the answer. It reads " And I will rid Myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Isrealites". In review of the scriptures you'll see that the people came against Moses but God said "I will rid myself of the constant grumbling against you", as if the people were grumbling against Him and not Moses. That passage is very powerful. God got upset when the people came against Moses, when Moses was opposed God was opposed. Now opposing God is sinful and God detest sin, so he moved to do away with the sinners. Whenever God's people are hurting God hurts, when someone offends God's chosen they offend God. To know that the Lord loves us that much that he would suffer with us to the extent where He can literally feel our pain and take justice against the ones who caused it is very powerful. Moses knew the Lord very well, the Bible says in Numbers 12:8 "Moses sees the form of the Lord" and that is why Moses fell facedown when being confronted. Moses knew the Lord would take offense to their sinfulness so he prayed that God have Mercy upon them. That is why believers are to pray for their enemies even when our enemies do wrong against us because if they really knew who they were upsetting they wouldn't attack Godly people.
God Bless, tell a friend and come back next week.