And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.
– Deuteronomy 34:10
Isn’t that such a great phrase? This verse summarizes Moses’s life and leadership and all that he did. He is the man who knew the Lord face to face. This is the exact language we see in Exodus 33. There, we read that God, the Lord, would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend. And you think about it. This was a privilege only reserved for a few people in the Old Testament, relatively few. I mean, Moses was the only one who got to go up on the mountain and meet with God. He was the only one who got to go into the tent of meeting to meet with God.
Deuteronomy 34:10 pictures the unmatched intimacy Moses had with God.
And when you keep turning the pages of Scripture, it was only a few people like the high priest who got to go into the holy of holies, into the presence of the holy Lord to offer a sacrifice. You think about the prophets who got to hear God’s word directly in order to share it with God’s people.
And yet when you turn the pages of the New Testament, the new covenant, and Jesus dies on a cross for sinners. The great high priest pays the price for all our sins, and the curtain of the temple is torn in two and the way is made open, wide open for all who trust in Jesus to be with God, to meet with God, not just to meet with him, but to be the dwelling place of his Spirit. Our bodies, the temple, like the reality for you and me, is that we get to commune with God like this all the time.
So God, we pray, help us to live in this. God, please help us to live in constant communion with you. Help us to walk with you and talk with you, not just pray on the side here or there when we are about to have a meal or a meeting or something. God help us to pray continually. Help us to speak with you, listen to you, and walk with you as your friend. Oh God, we praise you for making this possible.
Deuteronomy 34:10 teaches us the beauty of walking closely with God.
Jesus, we praise you for your sacrifice for us that opens the door for us to come into the holiest place, to be the holiest place, to be the temple of your Holy Spirit. Oh God, help us to live in light of this reality today. Every follower of Jesus, I pray this over all of us from the youngest to the oldest listening to this that they would know they get to walk with you today and that we would experience the depth and the wonder of this communion with you all day long and to lead others to this communion with you.
The fact that there people around us today, family members, friends, co-workers, classmates who don’t have this communion with you, and we have the words of life, we can lead them to this communion with you. God, we pray, help us to do this. Help us to be bold with the gospel.
Prayer for the Bashkir People
And God, we pray for this communion with you to spread among all the peoples of the world. God, we pray for the Bashkir of Russia and Belarus. Lord, we pray that the Bashkir people, this Muslim people group speaking the Bashkort language, God may the good news that the gospel spread in the Bashkort language to the Bashkir people for all 1.6 million of them. God please, that they might experience communion with you.
Oh God, we praise you for this privilege. Help us to walk in it and to spread it in our lives and around the world until we come face to face with you one day. Oh God, help us with longing for that day to live today, walking with you as your friend. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
