Daddy's Here To Stay!  by Steve Montag  

Exodus 13:20:  “So they took their journey from Succoth and camped in Etham at the edge of the wilderness.  And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night.  He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the people.”

 Exodus 14:13:  “Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid.  Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today.  For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.  The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.’”  Verse 19: “And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and sent behind them and the pillar of cloud went before them and stood behind them.  So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel.  Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night.”  Verse 24: “Now it came to pass, in the morning watch, that the Lord looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and He troubled the army of the Egyptians.  And He took off their chariot wheels, so that they drove them with difficulty; (how many know it’s hard to drive a chariot or a car without wheels?) and the Egyptians said, “let us flee from the face of Israel, (the devil is saying let us flee from the face of the Church) for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”

 There are some glorious and wonderful truths for us to learn and lay hold of concerning the Presence of God in our lives.  God wants us to be a people of Presence; that our reality and experience would be that we live and breathe and have our being in Him.  We can learn so much about the pillar of cloud and fire that accompanied the children of Israel through their journey through the wilderness.  This pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night was indeed a physical manifestation of God’s Presence among His people.

 We’re told that the Angel of God went before the people, and this Angel, who is referred to by theologians as a theophany, is the Presence of Jesus Himself in the Old Testament.  So when you read “the Angel of God” or “the Angel of the Lord,” it is the Lord Himself that the scripture is talking about.  He went before the camp of Israel and moved and went behind them.  How did they know he moved?  The scripture says the pillar went before them and then stood behind them.  His Presence was manifest in that pillar.

 In verse 24 it says the Lord looked down in the morning upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of cloud.  The pillar was the physical symbol of God’s Presence just as the Ark of the Covenant would become a symbol of His Presence. 

 There are a couple of truths we need to understand about His Presence because it relates to what God is doing here in The Father’s Heart and in this city.  This is the hour for God to move.

 Exodus 13:22:  “He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the people.”  Once God’s Presence shows up in your life, it’s there to soak and indwell you; it has come to stay.  This is not a visitation; the Master is home and He’s here to stay.  He’s not the guest of honor; He’s the Master of the House.  He owns it.

 He doesn’t come and go as our emotions sometimes try to make us think.  You know, sometimes you feel like you’re saved and sometimes you don’t.  This, what He’s talking about here in this verse, is a 24-7 situation.  He will never abandon or forsake you.  No matter what you’re going through or how messed up you’ve made your life.  He says I will never abandon you because I love you to pieces.  Remember, it was God who alone walked between the two pieces when He made His covenant to Abraham.

 This is a Covenant Presence we are experiencing.  It’s a Perpetual Presence.

 In Jeremiah 50:5 it says let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that will never be forgotten.  The Hebrew word for “perpetual” is “olam” which means “eternal, forever or everlasting.”  He is saying, “I will never remove My Presence from you.”

 He hasn’t come upon us but He’s come to indwell us.  We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are not our own.  We were bought with a price.  We need to understand that truth.  It speaks of permanence.  God’s Presence is here to stay in our lives.  He has come to reside within us. He is committed to us.

 Our relationship to Him is a cause and effect relationship.  Simply, we often talk about our need to be committed to God, but we need to remember that every positive action we can take in relation to God is in reality, a response to an action He has already taken towards us.

 Why do we love Him?  Our love for Him is really a response to the fact that He loved us so much that He gave His only Son for us. 

 In the giving of His only Son, He showed us how much He is committed to us.  It is our response to that love that should be the basis of our commitment to Him.

 Daddy’s come home and He’s here to stay!

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