Eph 4:30 NLT And do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.

My whole purpose for having a blog is for Edifying, Exhorting and comforting other Christians. As a Christian, my heart's desire is that we all live a life that is pleasing to God and it also helps me with my walk while I am reading, studying and sharing. I'm helping others and myself at the same time. I'm learning daily not only how to please God but also how to communicate to others without sounding too judgmental or preachy if you will. I say what is given to me but I also say how I am feeling like my subject: What happened to standing firm on God's word.

Today I want to talk about Ephesians 4:30. Every time I read it it breaks my heart. Just the thought of grieving God is sad and fearful. At the same time it is the most comforting scripture because it is reassuring that we are sealed by the same Spirit who personally identified us as His own and we are sealed until redemption.

**this is an add on because it is important. Being sealed means that you are closed in and no one can get in or get out. So while we are on this earth, God has us protected, we are in his hands and nothing is going to change our status, we will remain as we are, sealed and safe until redemption. **

The first time we found God grieving was in Gen. Gen 6:6The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.


Now we know what happened to the people as a result of how the Lord felt. Only Noah and his family was saved. Now, the Lord promised us that we are secured and sealed but even though we are sealed, we can still bring on the same pain even more so than during Noah. Hard to imagine bringing in more pain than that.


God sent His ONLY begotten Son to die for our sins. After we acknowledge what sin is and that we have sinned against God and realized that we need a savior and repent of our sins, how much more pain do you think we bring on God to go back to that sin that he suffered and died for? As humans we are capable of making mistakes. But, as Christians we are not capable of practicing sin (living in darkness). As Christians we have to be very mindful of things (surprises) that catch us off guard that might make us angry and want to revert back to the old man. God said be angry and sin not. Eph 4:26. Do not go to bed with your wrath. We are apt to get in a situation that will make us angry but fix it. God gave us the tools to do that. Keep your mind on Christ.


The mind is a very powerful part of the body. The mind dictates what we see and our eyes dictate what we hear. That is why sometimes when I am in the choir, I will close my eyes so that I can get my note right. Not that I have to do that all the time but if someone next to me is out of tune or if I am out of tune, than I have to focus on my note by closing my eyes (during rehearsal). That is also why a blind man's hearing is much more sensitive than those who can see. He have nothing distracting him from hearing what is truly there or said. I'm saying all this because our mind/flesh know what sinful things look like, taste like, feel like from experience and will show us what it wants leading us to deception and sin. It is so important to rely on God's senses that is righteous and not ours that is sinful. Create in me a clean heart oh Lord and renew a right spirit within me. Not focus on the natural. We have to kill that old man for good and God told us how to do that in his word.


Stop lying! It is so easy to lie to get out of trouble or to come up in the world. We no longer have the spirit of lying but I believe that, just like a child that remember that each time they cry, they get the response they want. I believe we do the same thing. We don't have a lying spirit in us but, we know what lying can do as far as avoiding responsibility for wrong doing or receiving something we did not earn and sometime fall back into doing the things that we use to do. Remember, God hates a liar and remember who is the father of lies, Satan.


I was reading the prior verse about stealing. I would like to use this regarding someone we know. If someone we know whether it's a child, friend or family that stole from you, and they want to earn your trust back, I think the best way to stop it from happening again is to have them work it off. Have them work it off honestly by giving them something to do that will be equivalent to what they owe like cleaning your house or help fix something. Help them to have the mind to not want to steal anymore and teach them, by being merciful, that working is far better than taking/stealing. It makes an honest woman/man out of them. These are suggestions that I have.


For single people, when we meet a man or woman that we are very attracted to and I will just say it, we can find ourselves being very sexually attracted to them, we must do whatever it takes to avoid committing sin against God. It is important that you keep your mind on God and your heart pure. Do not put yourself in a situation that you know may lead to you sinning against God. ***I want to add more because we live in a world now of new technology. Put a stop to all things leading to sexual sin such as dirty conversations on the phone, texting, pictures and videos. And I'm just going to say it, sexual sin is more than just penetration. You are not fooling God by thinking you can out smart Him. You are only fooling yourself. Don't you know that God knows your deepest and darkest desires and secrets? Stop all of it.*** Paul tells us that our body do not belong to us and when we do this, we are becoming one with that person. We are grieving the Holy Spirit when we commit fornication. If you find that it might be hard than do what is necessary to keep yourself pure. Get out of the relationship if it's not healthy for you to be in it especially if you know this is not your life mate. I, at the age of 44, bought myself a purity ring. Not to say that I messed up (or didn't mess up) all the other years but now MY MIND IS SET AND FIXATED! I am focused! I dedicated my life to Christ and I let men know right away where I stand and I don't care if they have a problem with it. They are not sending me to heaven. They can not speak for me as a witness to say that they enticed me. God seen it all and know it all and was there when it happened! We all stand alone during God's trial. 


God is loyal and He is faithful to us even when we are not faithful and this is why we are sealed until redemption, however, the Spirit of God still grieves when we sin against him. We know what happened before when he was grieved and we don't want to cause that kind of pain on Him.


My purity ring doesn't just remind me not to do sexual sin, it reminds me to be pure minded in speech, action, living. If you would like to have a bracelet or something that will remind you who's you are when things get rough, than go ahead. Be spiritual minded at all times. 


God bless you.

I GIVE MYSELF AWAY

Think about what that means. When we give something away it means it no longer belongs to us. We no longer own it and no longer have a say in what to do with it, how to use it, where to put it. When we say Lord, I give myself away, we are saying I no longer have possession of my body. Whatever you want to do with me, I will allow you to use me. My wants, my desires no longer matters. I don't even listen to it because I only hear your voice.


We must be like Jesus, He lived for the Father and the Father alone. That is why, on earth, he denounced who He really is. Jesus gave Himself away to the Father and now we must be like Christ. We give ourselves away to God. We live for Him and only Him. When you understand that, your life is guaranteed to change. You will look at the Bible for instructions instead of friends. You will pray before you do anything to make sure He approves it. Your lifestyle will change. Your thoughts will change. I give myself away. You can not be his disciple if you are not willing to give yourself away.

HAVE YOU CONSIDER MY SERVANT...?

Job is one of the most fascinating books in the Bible. Number one because we do not know who the author of the book is but we know it is a true story because his name is mentioned in other places in the Bible. It's a story about a man who suffered so much unbelievable pain for any one man and yet he never turned against God.

Job is also the kind of book that if you read it over and over again you will always get something new from it as if you are reading it for the first time. A man who lost almost everything including his health is sitting in grief and then have to hear his wife say "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.Job 2:9. He had to hear his friends try to convince him that in order for him to get better, he must repent because he must have committed a sin for something like this to happen to him. Even one of his friends tried to convince him that he is wrong in thinking he didn't do anything wrong by saying one day he had a vision or a dream and the spirit who came to him asked, Is a man more righteous than God? He was giving Job that example to say that how dare you say out of your mouth that you are innocent. Not only that, Job was in so much grief that he wanted God to turn back the hands of time and erase the day that he was born or better yet, he said do not allow me to live at birth. Saying I could have been buried next to the kings with their silver and gold or next to the slaves who's freedom only came with death. Those who were relieved from this life. In other words, let me die at birth so my spirit will continue to live so that there would have been an existence, I just don't want this life in the flesh.

There was a very interesting conversation between Job and the friends and I try to figure out each time I read this story what is the moral of the story. I get different morals like 1) Just because someone is suffering does not mean that they did something wrong. 2) I learn what not to do to a friend who is suffering which is make matters worse by blaming them for their pain. 3)I learned that God gave Satan permission to do whatever he wanted to do with Job but he could not take his life. Meaning he had free will to put any kind of pain on him and yet Job was strong enough to stay with God through the worst that Satan can bring on him. That is incredible when we think about what we go through and it feels like much, but Job had the worst of the worst and it's because God gave Satan permission to do his worst. But Job never cursed God, not even once.

In the story Job asked for a trial from God. Job wanted to know, what is my guilt? Why have you put such a punishment on me and I not know what I have done? Shouldn't everyone get a trial or shouldn't everyone know what they are guilty of before they are sentience with the punishment of the sin? How fair is it to give me my punishment when I don't even know what I have done? Then I thought to myself, he probably wouldn't have had those thoughts had his friends not put in his face that he must have done something wrong. Note: Watch who your friends are!** This is a good example to evaluate your thinking, your friend could be a bad influence** Even though Job knew he did nothing wrong he wanted a trial because, in his mind, God have some explaining to do. And it had gotten to the point where he wanted to prove to his friends that he did nothing wrong by doing the unthinkable. He wanted God to tell him what he did wrong in front of his friends! This is bold because if you are guilty, you would not tell God to tell you want you have done wrong because you already know plus, you don't want to upset God even more by having Him bring it up to you in your face. No one want to face God with guilt, but for Job to be so bold as to tell God to give him a trial in front of his friends, well that is pretty confident. And during this time Job never sinned against God. So fascinating.

Then I came to another moral of this story. 4)Who in the world (literally) would come up with the conclusion that God was showing Satan a lesson by using Job, as an example, to show him that Job would never curse him, ever. Satan must have hated this creation (man) that God made and I'm sure Satan resented God for putting so much value on this creation who would disobey Him if he did not continue to protect and bless them. I'm sure Satan was calling God out on His mistake for creating these people (human). Who on earth would have guessed that? No one would have guessed that! No one would even think that God would be having a conversation with Satan let alone tell him he can have his way with Job. So what is the moral of this story? Well there are a lot but in my 4th case, God can and will do whatever He want to do and you can never figure out God and why somethings happen. Obvious right? But wait...

Things happen in the world today and humans say how can God do this or how can God allow this? Some will say there can't be a God because if there were a God then how could He allow this to happen? That's the thing, you don't know, you can never know. You have to do like Job and just trust in the Lord at all times not wavering your faith because something doesn't make sense to you. Don't assume you understand why something happened and don't try to get to God's level and say God did this because of this unless he told you Himself why.  I hear people say Katrina happened because of their sin. The earthquake happened in Haiti because of their sin. That could be right but, unless God told you that, don't assume you know what God is doing and why and if you haven't gotten it by now then read Job or Luke 13:1-5. It is so easy for us to blame disasters on sin because it makes us feel better to know that justice happens to the just and injustice happens to the unjust (which is actually justice) but what we must realize is that grace and mercy happens to whom God choose and we must pray that we remain for the rest of our lives under God's grace and mercy. Look at Job, the covering that Job had was God's grace and mercy and God took the covering away from Job to allow Satan to have his way with Job but, Satan could not kill him. All are subject to God's command and will, ALL including Satan. This is why Paul would pray this prayer at the end of his letters, May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you or with your spirit. It's not just handed to us just because we became saved. We can't take God for granted, we must pray and thank Him every single day for His grace and His mercy.

God never gave Job the answer to what he was looking for. God reminded Job that he is no where near God's level or place. Do you question the creator? Than God changed it. By letting him know why you can never understand what I am doing and why I do it. In other words how about you answer Me human, how did I make the animals? What was I thinking when I did it? And so on which is putting humans in our place. God is saying, understand what I am (Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient) and understand your place in my life and in this life.

In the end, God punished the friends who spoke wrongly about God. In a 180 degree turn of events, it was Job that acted as a priest, on his friends behalf, so requested by God, and that he would only forgive the friends sins through Job (whom the friends had to bring their sacrifices to) so that God would not punish them by treating them as godless people. God also restored Job and blessed him with more then he had before for his faithfulness. 

The moral? 5) God is God and stay faithful no matter what. We don't always know what God is doing, but we know what we must do. Never speak wrongly about God. Trust in the Lord at all times no matter what happens in your life whether you lose a family, friend, job, health, whatever the case maybe. Continue to do what is right at all times. And don't take His grace and mercy for granted. You must pray and asked daily for His mercy and grace for we do not know always what we do that could be displeasing to God. You never know when you are being tested. Can God say to Satan, have you considered my servant...That there is none like him/her in the earth, a perfect and an upright man/woman, one that fear God, and stay away from evil?

Job 1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that [there is] none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?


God Bless you.

SEND ME AN EMAIL

I just wanted to let everyone know that if you would like to send me an email, you can do so at the bottom of the page or my email address is at the top Betchert@yahoo.com. Also I set up my favorite links on the right hand side. I will add more later.

Thank you and God bless you.

JUDE 1:20-23 BEING USED BY GOD

JUDE 1-20But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,21Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.22And of some have compassion, making a difference:23And others save with fear, pulling [them] out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. KJV

What I love about this message from Jude is that he is leaving us with the message to take care of one another by actually being our brothers keeper and most importantly, doing this through the Holy Ghost. When I read this the first thing that came to my mind is that this is the example of the difference between Christian love and worldly love. 

Now that we are set apart from those who pretend like they are saved or those who are in the world we must keep ourselves holy but not just ourselves, but help our fellow brothers also. He said building ourselves in the most holy faith. There are a lot of different beliefs out there but there is only ONE true faith that we stand on and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. He says praying in the Holy Ghost. It is the Holy Spirit that is able to interpret our prayers but not only that, it is the Holy Spirit that also speaks on our behalf when we don't know what to say. What better representative we have than the Holy Spirit speaking through us. The work and help gets done when we pray in the Holy Spirit. He is able to clean us and purify us and to keep us from all harm and danger seen and unseen.

Than we have to be effective. By staying in tuned with the Holy Spirit He is speaking to our fellow brother, knowing what is necessary to pull them out of their sin.

NOTE: Don't be so quick to ignore the ones who are trying to help you get back on track because you could be ignoring God himself(The Holy Spirit speaking). No one will fight for you harder than God. And, even if their intentions maybe judgmental and does not sound like it's coming from God, if what they are saying is true, you should still take heed because you are responsible for keeping yourself holy and you know when you are not doing what you are supposed to do.  

God loves us so much that when we are so far in our sin that we are not listening to the Holy Spirit, that He will send others to help. We are God's instruments. Those whom God loves, he chasten. By praying in he Holy Spirit he will do the speaking for us whether the person need compassion to get out of their sin, if we need to put fear in them to get them back on track and with some, He want to make sure you don't have a stain on you at all. In other words, the picky one who wants to make sure you stay away from all possible sin. 

We can tell the differences between someone reaching out to you with the love of God or if they are just being judgmental and nosy working in the flesh. 

I am writing this to you because when I read this it illuminated in me and was made clear to me. We want to stay under God's grace and mercy. If we love one another than we would want them also to stay under God's grace and mercy but when we are dealing with our fellow brothers, it is important that we first wait on the Holy Spirit to speak and the way to do that is to PRAY IN THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

God bless you.

Jude 1:24Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present [you] faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,25To the only wise God our Saviour, [be] glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

GOD CAN DO IT.

My ex-husband, God rest his soul...


Oh no, he is not dead but it is true that he need to slow down and rest : ). Being a parent is not an easy job. We think it gets better when they are adults but I think it gets harder because for instance, when they were young, I had a say so in what they do. I picked their schools, their clothes, their church and so on. But, once they are grown, we as parents pray that they will take everything that they have learned and apply it to their adult life. Because he wasn't there while they were growing up he feels that he has to make up for lost time and teach them everything that they need to know about survival. The problem that my ex-husband is having is trusting that they will make good choices and he have a hard time with letting go and letting God...

I spoke to my wise mother and she said something that was so wonderful that I just had to share it. She said that whatever we can not do, we know for sure that God can do it. I said you are right. We should have no burdens because we know that we can talk to our kids and advise them and even help them but we are limited in what we can do for them as adults. We should not worry at all because like my wise mother said, what we can not do which is watch over them 27/7 we know God can do it. There is nothing impossible for God to do so we as parents of a child of any age need to ease up and relax. God got this!


God bless you.

IT'S ALL IN THE PRESENTATION

MY PRAYER FOR US UNTIL WE GO TO OUR ETERNAL HOME

The only thing that is placed heavily on my heart today is this from 2cr 13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.


This is considered a prayer that Paul left with the Corinthian church in this letter so what I would like to talk about is what does this prayer mean and what is he saying.


The most important thing that should stick out is how he mentioned the Three. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. May the Three be with you. In studying this in the original text Amen is followed afterwords. They say that by Amen being followed, he is praying to God. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Each equally divine. 


Next let's look at what this prayer means. 
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Grace is God's unmerited favor
And the love of God: The concordance says it is the manifestation of his goodness and favor in the pardon of sin, in the communication of his grace, in the comforts and consolations which he imparts to his people, in all that constitutes an expression of love. The love of God brings salvation; imparts comfort; pardons sin; sanctifies the soul; fills the heart with joy and peace.
And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit: He gives love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith Gal. 5:22. And miraculous endowments. He also gives us wisdom, knowledge, counsel, might, and the fear of the Lord. And imparts gifts for edifying the local and universal church and for kingdom building.


These are all the tools we need to be able to concur sin and to live a life that is holy and acceptable unto God, which is the least we can do for what Christ has done for us. And when you think about it. It is not our power that is doing the work, God is giving us the power to do his work. 


It's like the teacher giving you all the answers to pass the test and do the work without you having to memorize it. All you have to do is follow exactly what is in the book and it will be impossible for you to fail.


This is my prayer for us all. 


God bless you!

Here are some inspirational music for you today. 

STANDING FIRM ON GOD'S WORD!

I got to get something off my chest. I don't think that we as Christian understand what a privilege we have in America. We actually have rights as people who are Christians to vote. There are people in other countries who are Christians that would give anything to be in our position. This reminds me of the civil rights movement where my generation and moving forward do not understand the sacrifices that were made so that African Americans and others can vote. We can't take advantage of the gift of freedom.


But sadly I talk to some people who are Christian and are forfeiting the right to vote based on the word of God and just want to vote on what they think is popular. They don't even think about what the word of God says but just look at other things to persuade them to vote for a candidate who approve of things that are clearly against God's word.

Christians? What happened to standing firm on God's word? If you can't handle something as simple as picking someone who wants to keep the Christian standards than how in the world can you be a reliable soldier when the time comes to really fight for righteousness? We read the bible and we wonder how did things get so bad. Well guess how? It's when the Christians sleep on their job. It's when Christian no longer find it popular to stand up for what is right. It's when Christian become lacked and think that they are doing nothing wrong by voting for someone who allow certain things to be accepted. Don't you understand that it's the little by little things that end up big in the future? It's the sorry so called Christians who are relying on the real Christians to do the hard work for them. Each time you get on your knees and pray that the Lord will turn things around what is happening is God is using those who are the true Christians that stand firm on his word to fight to make things happen and than you can sit at home and say thank you Lord for answering my prayers. Yes I am calling you out. I am calling out those Christians who knowingly vote for the candidate that represents Gods law the least, for personal reasons. The reasons should only be one because, in a situation like this, we are no longer African Americans, or Mexicans, or Asians, and most importantly we are no longer sinners but we are Children of God who residents is the Kingdom of Heaven, who follows only one law and that is God's law. That should be your "personal" reason for voting. I'm a Christian and it's not personal, it's spiritual!

ONLY HELP

What I love about this song is you hear a man who has repented. If you know the story about this man he had committed adultery. He wrote this song after the fact and I can hear that he is not only sorry but he realize like a lot of us who are caught in a sin situation that God is the only one who can help us. We can't even help ourselves. God is the only one who can take away the sin.

LET US WORSHIP THE LORD TOGETHER.

I KNOW YOU BY NAME!

Exodus 33:  NLV

7Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the LORD would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. 8And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. 9As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the LORD spoke with Moses. 10Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. 11The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. 12Moses said to the LORD, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ 13If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

14The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

15Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

17And the LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

18Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”

19And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

21Then the LORD said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

 Wow! All of this is amazing but I want to speak on the part where God said, I know you by name. Now it is obvious that, by God being God, that He knows everyone that He created by name so there must be a deeper meaning to this. God is telling Moses that we have a special connection, a special relationship that is like no other in the camp. When God said He know him by name He was saying I speak to you like no other face to face meaning audible understanding like two friends speak. He is saying I share things with you that I share with no other because you have favor in My sight. God also showed his sovereignty by saying I will have compassion for whomever I choose to. The reason he said this is that the prior verse that I did not highlight, God said He will not go with them because they are a stiff necked people and He might kill them out of anger. But He changed His mind because of the favor He saw in Moses. He took care of Moses when he allowed Moses to get a gimps of His back.


Now, Moses saw the back of Jesus Christ. How do I know this? The reason is because the bible tells us that the Father never leaves heaven. The Father, God head, always sit on the throne. No one has seen the Father, "who is in heaven", except for the Son. Later we know that He became flesh and showed Himself to man as a human so that He could suffer death, and now we receive Him through the Holy Spirit. TheThree working separately as One. I don't want to get too deep into this but just to say that before Jesus came, God introduced Himself as I Am that I Am. The people understood that there is only One God and there is. God introduced Himself the way He wanted to be introduced at that time period  and by the prophets, He gave clues as to the fullness of God. It wasn't until Christ came that God introduced Himself as what we call the trinity God the Father, Jesus as the Son of God and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost as the Comforter revealing the prophecy. Now back to Moses, Jesus showed his back to Moses and said, I will cause my GOODNESS to pass in front of you AND I WILL PROCLAIM MY NAME, THE LORD, in your presence. My Lord. He did something for Moses that he has done for no other. Gills commentary explains it like this: God's goodness, Which is his glory; the glory of the Lord lies in his goodness, and that appears in the works of his hands, in the methods of his providence, especially in the distribution of his sovereign grace and mercy, and particularly in his pardoning grace and mercy, through the blood of Christ; for as it is "the glory" of a man "to pass over a transgression",



and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee: his name and his nature, his perfections, and the glory of them, as displayed in Christ; or when he is about to pass, or while he is passing by, lest he should pass by unobserved, I will proclaim aloud and give thee notice that he is now passing by thee, whose name is Jehovah, and whose nature, glory, and goodness, are as follow:


and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy: signifying that notwithstanding the children of Israel had sinned against him in such a manner as they had, yet he should show favour, grace, and mercy to them, in pardoning their sins; and it should be distributed, not according to any merits of theirs, but according to his sovereign will and pleasure, and not to all, but to whomsoever he thought fit; and in this would be seen his glory: and so it is with respect to grace and mercy, as displayed in Christ to sinful men; it is not in proportion to their deserts, but according to the purpose and good will of God, and that not unto all, but unto some whom he has appointed, not unto wrath, but unto salvation by Jesus Christ, and which is to the glory of his grace; and the more enlarged view men have of this, the more clearly and fully does the goodness and glory of God pass before them.

Now let's flip to present by going to: John 11:11

11I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

God is speaking about those who are born again. It is God that lives on the inside of us that makes us greater than John the Baptist not because we are a better person than he is but because it was made possible by the work of Christ. 

Now let us look at Exodus again and see what God had done at Moses request because He know Moses by name through having favor or grace in God's sight. Now, thanks to Christ, we also have a special relationship with God. Like Moses we can say He knows our name. And now because of what Christ did for us we have a direct contact with God because, even though we don't see Him, He lives on the inside of us and is always with us at all times. And because of this, we have direct contact with the Father as well for we are able to pray saying Our Father, Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed Be Thy Name. That we are separated from the rest of the world because He has separated by sanctifying us. And it is the Holy Spirit that teaches us His ways through His word and in our hearts. That His ways is not taught by man, but by God Himself! What a fellowship, what peace we have, what a privilege we have. 

Praise Him for we have favor with God!

God bless you.