Hard to accept, but true

The following is a short message by pastor Zac Poonen, of Christian Fellowship Church in Bangalore, India that I received in my email this morning. This is a lesson that I have learned in my life, and one that was reluctantly learned, something hard to accept but true. As we grow older chronologically, it is harder to hide behind our carnal façades, and if we finally let the Lord have His way with us, well, maybe we'll finally begin to understand who it is we really are, as Moses did. Here's pastor Zac's message…

Learn to Value Divine Wisdom

Moses was a man who got a certificate of approval from God. God said concerning him, "My servant Moses is faithful inall My household" (Numbers 12:7). It was recorded of Moses at his death that, "since then no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10).

It was not through Moses's first forty years of training in the palace and the military academies of Egypt that he became a spiritual leader. No. It was through God breaking the strength of his 'Self', when Moses spent the next forty years looking after sheep in the wilderness.

At the age of eighty, with his confidence in his own abilities shattered, Moses could lean upon God and become the deliverer of God's people.

In the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness, we read one phrase repeated eighteen times in Exodus chapters 39 and 40 - the phrase, "just as the Lord had commanded Moses". The pattern of the tabernacle given by the Lord was a very simple and modest-looking affair. It was a far cry from the fantastic pyramids that Moses had seen built in Egypt.

If Moses had been given the plan of the tabernacle at the age of 40, when the strength of his 'Self' was in full bloom, he would certainly have modified it and made it look more attractive. But at the age of 80, Self had so died out, that he did exactly as the Lord commanded him. And that is what brought the glory of the Lord into the tabernacle.

Our human wisdom has to be dethroned if we are to obtain Divine wisdom.

The Bible says, "If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become foolish that he may become wise."
(1 Corinthians 3:18).

God could approve of Moses only when the chaff of the wisdom of Egypt had been thrashed out of him.

The apostle Paul had studied for three years at the feet of Gamaliel, the great professor of theology at the Jerusalem Bible school. That's why he had to spend three years after his conversion, in the wilderness of Arabia to have the wisdom of Gamaliel removed from his system and replaced with Divine wisdom. Paul refers to this period in Galatians 1:17,18: "I went away to Arabia… Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem."

Only then could Paul become a servant of the Lord.

The dethroning of human cleverness is fundamental for anyone who would serve the Lord. Yet there are few who learn this lesson fully.

God tested Moses when he made the tabernacle to see whether he would make it exactly according to the pattern that he had received on the mount. The glory of the Lord coming on that tabernacle was the visible indication of God's satisfaction with Moses' work.

How is it with us in what we do and build for the Lord? Is it exactly according to the pattern found in the Scriptures? Or have we modified it with some of the wisdom of this world? If so, then that must certainly be one reason why the glory of the Lord is not found in our lives.