"Come Up"

"There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount." Exodus 19:13

Look with me for a moment at some Biblical accounts where the Lord wanted a personal experience with His people, wanted to impart some spiritual blessing or wanted to give them a revelation about Himself.

God wanted to have a personal encounter with the Israelites so He told them to come up to the mountain. Jesus wanted to give His disciples a revelation of who He was so He took Peter, James and John up the Mount of Transfiguration. The Lord wanted to give His people a revelation of and infill them with His Holy Spirit so He told them to go to the Upper Room. The Lord wanted to give John a revelation of Jesus at the end of time and His return so He called John to come up to the heavenly realm.

Have you noticed a common factor? In each case the people were called to come "up". Staying on the "low" plain, on street level, at the base of the mountain is not where a higher, deeper revelation and experience of who God is is found. We have to "come up". We have to make a deliberate effort to come up to where He is. Yes, He is a wonderful merciful God who will reach down low to meet us at the point of our need. But the deeper things in God are found when we come up to Him- when we go to a higher place.

He came down in each account- He came to the top of Mt. Sinai, He came to the upper room, Jesus came down from heaven- He met us "half-way" but He calls us to come the other half of the way to Him. He came down and was lifted "up" on the cross. I have to come up to the cross to receive Him as Savior and Lord. The point is, God has already given us the invitation to come to Him, He came down to meet us, now it's our place to "come up" in order to "connect" with Him. It doesn't just "automatically" happen, we have to go up to meet with Him.

Have a great day. He has come down to meet with you and show you great and mighty things that you know not, to impart a revelation to you, to reveal His glorious self to you, but you have to come up the rest of the way.