Deut 14:28+29, "At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and shall deposit it in your town. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.
We are deep into our discussion of the difference that the prayer of Moses as recorded in Ex 33:12-14 makes in our relationship with the Lord God Almighty. We mention this again because this morning’s passage is the heart of the Lord that was expressed through Moses for those who had nothing of their own in the Promised Land. Whether it was the orphan or the widow or the alien or even the Levite, it was the way of the Lord to make every provision for them. This is what Moses requested of the Lord, to know Him in the depth of knowing His ways. 
Ex 33:12-14, Then Moses said to the Lord, "See, Thou dost say to me, 'Bring up this people!' But Thou Thyself hast not let me know whom Thou wilt send with me. Moreover, Thou hast said, 'I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.' "Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found favor in Thy sight, let me know Thy ways, that I may know Thee, so that I may find favor in Thy sight. Consider too, that this nation is Thy people." And He said, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest." 
As we have mentioned there is a tremendous difference between knowing God by His acts and knowing Him by His ways. To know the acts of God does not require a relationship with Him. The Egyptians, as we saw last week, knew that there was some deity protecting the Children of Israel. They suffered tremendously as a direct result of the Lord’s intervention on the behalf of His people, yet Egypt did not turn to Him or seek Him. They just feared Him.
The same is true even in the course of the natural phenomenon which occurs regularly in the physical world today. The hurricanes and the tornadoes and the earthquakes and all the assortment of powerful forces of nature are all lumped together in what are called the acts of God. Yet those who use such language do not necessarily believe in any god whatsoever. It is just the terminology used to classify those things which require labeling. 
All people can see the acts of God in this realm, and yet many will never give Him any more credence or belief than did the Egyptians of old. God’s hand at work is often explained away with the most bizarre and unbelievable theories and speculations. This is despite the obvious truth that it is all the Omnipotence of God in action. His Hand at work is plain as day to those who will open their eyes and their hearts and their minds to the truth. We live in a world upheld and governed by the Lord God Almighty Who created the heavens and the earth.
This, then, brings us back to Moses and his prayer to know the ways of God in order to have a much deeper relationship with the Lord God Almighty. To know the ways of the Lord requires prayerful attention to all that God is showing as He rules and overrules and works in the lives and in the hearts and in the minds of His people. To know the ways of the Lord means that we spend time, countless hours with Him, as did Moses in the Tent of Meeting and on the mountain tops, day after day after day for all those 40 years of wandering in the desert regions. He invested himself into this time with the Lord, praying, talking, studying, writing, beseeching, and fellowshipping with Him. To receive the answer to his prayer, Moses had to dedicate himself into a relationship with God that transcended all other relationships and obligations. He sought to know how the Lord would deal with each situation and dilemma and circumstance so that he could lead the people aright, after the heart of the Lord.
We now pick up this living relationship in learning the ways of the Lord as was addressed by the Prophet Isaiah in Isa 58:2-11. Please turn to it. 
Isa 58:2-11, "Yet they seek Me day by day, and delight to know My ways, As a nation that has done righteousness, And has not forsaken the ordinance of their God. They ask Me for just decisions, They delight in the nearness of God. 'Why have we fasted and Thou dost not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and Thou dost not notice?' Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire, And drive hard all your workers. "Behold, you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist. You do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high. "Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself? Is it for bowing one's head like a reed, And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed? Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord? "Is this not the fast which I choose, To loosen the bonds of wickedness, To undo the bands of the yoke, And to let the oppressed go free, And break every yoke? "Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, And bring the homeless poor into the house; When you see the naked, to cover him; And not to hide yourself from your own flesh? "Then your light will break out like the dawn, And your recovery will speedily spring forth; And your righteousness will go before you; The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. "Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; You will cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.' If you remove the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, And if you give yourself to the hungry, And satisfy the desire of the afflicted, Then your light will rise in darkness, And your gloom will become like midday. "And the Lord will continually guide you, And satisfy your desire in scorched places, And give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. 
     	In this passage, we have the heart of the Lord again expressed in terms of the treatment of one another, especially the treatment of those in need. To know God and the ways of the Lord is to know how He desires to bless those who are helpless and alone. Just as we need a Savior to save us, our hearts are to go out to those who need help and assistance and care and keeping and support and encouragement and friendship. 
God is not found in the comfort of biding our time and ignoring the needs of others. His way is to lay down our lives for the sake of those so desperately in need of grace and mercy and salvation. If we are open to the guidance of the Lord we will find ourselves taken us out of our comfortable stations in life. We will be caused us to give freely as we have so freely received. That is where we will find that we are on the path of learning the ways of the Lord.
	Listen to the Prophet Hosea in Hos 14:9. Hos 14:9, Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; Whoever is discerning, let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right, And the righteous will walk in them, But transgressors will stumble in them. 
The Lord’s ways and the knowledge of His ways and, ultimately, the knowledge of the living relationship that can be found in Jesus Christ, is not the way of shortcuts and comfortable excuses and guarding our self interests. It is the way of the hard and narrow path of righteousness and justice and long-suffering and death to self in order to help those in such desperate quandaries. It is the path that offers hope in those situations utterly devoid of any hope other than the Hand of God bringing salvation. 

Consider all that Moses went through with those Israelites, all the complaining and the rebellion and the accusations and the threats and the disobedience and the faithlessness and the idolatry and the backstabbing that he endured. Even with all that garbage heaped upon him, Moses would still bring to the Lord the truth that these were God’s Chosen people and that the Lord’s name and testimony was eternally attached to them. He would put the sake of the Glory of God at the forefront. It was in this sensitivity for the witness of the Lord that we get some sense of how God was answering the prayer of Moses to know the ways of the Lord.
A later prophet, Malachi, was used by the Lord to express His heart toward the nation that had so turned away from God and the delights of knowing Him in a living manner. Please open to Mal 3:10-18, so we can read this passage recounting the heart of the Lord and His ways of seeking to correct the abusive attitude and behavior of His people.
Mal 3:10-18, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. "Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it may not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes," says the Lord of hosts. "And all the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land," says the Lord of hosts. "Your words have been arrogant against Me," says the Lord. "Yet you say, 'What have we spoken against Thee?' "You have said, 'It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of hosts? 'So now we call the arrogant blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up, but they also test God and escape.'" Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who esteem His name. "And they will be Mine," says the Lord of hosts, "on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him. 
    	In this passage, we get a sense of the heart of God as He was considering the people whom He rescued and whom He sustained. There is that full implication that the people had treated God wickedly and shamefully. They had robbed Him which is to deprive those who are in need of the provision as detailed in this morning’s passage. 
When we try to legitimize our actions and our attitudes in behaving disgracefully and dishonorably against God, we can be assured that we do not know His ways of operation and blessing and care and fulfillment and peace and joy and righteousness. None of it will be in evidence in the course of our lives if we are less than forthright and honorable to all the ways of the Lord.
	As like Moses, our prayer should be centered in knowing God and His ways. That course of yearning necessitates that we willingly follow all that He requires of us, not because we have to, or out of some sense of obligation, or because we are thinking that we will get something great for ourselves if we do so. No! We honor the Lord and we obey Him and His every stipulation because we know that it is the right and correct way to live our lives before the Lord and before all mankind. It is not a matter of having to do so to earn this privilege or that reward. 
It is simply because we love the Lord, we do those things which evidence that love and that respect and that honor for Him! Our ways become entwined with His ways and His guidance and His testimony and His glory. We will find ourselves doing only that which pleases Him because that is what we desire to do, to please Him.
	It will no longer be the matter of receiving His good blessings and praise as the means of changing our behavior. Such is the manner of working with children and giving them all the positive reinforcement in order to adjust their behavior and to guide their decision making processes. That is how the Lord begins His work in our lives. It is the correct means to cause us to want to grow into Christ as mature men and women of God. However, the focal truth should be that we grow up into Christ. 
	There should develop that maturity when we are no longer looking at the way that the Lord trains us. Much more deeply, we should rather be concerned that our ways are fully in line with His ways simply because it is the only way we want to live. This is that development in our relationship with Him that evidences the difference between operating under the vision of the acts of the Lord and knowing Him because we have been taught His ways and we love His ways. We cherish our time with Him as He is refining the manner in which our way of life reflects His very life.
	It will no longer be the issue of what can we do that would make our lives on this earth better and more comfortable and experiencing more and more of His blessings. It will not be that we are afraid of the consequences of disobedience and weighing how far we think that we can push the line with the Lord before we experience His displeasure. 
Much more in depth, it will be that we truly know no other way of living than that which honors and pleases the Lord fully. It will reflect our completely losing ourselves in all that will serve the Lord with the complete fabric of our essence. There will be no regard for how it affects us, either positively or negatively. It will only be our abhorrence to anything that would cause the loss of our fellowship with Him that we cherish to the utmost. Our full walk will focus on that which will bring glory to His Name, Alone!
	We will, Lord willing, bring this consideration to a close next week. The truth is that we will never really be at an end of this deliberation since it is to be the course of our lives on this earth. We will ever seek to know His ways in order to have the depth of our increasing knowledge of the Lord being the foundational truth of who we are and how we function and interact with all those who are part of our lives. 
Still, we want to continue our reading together of the Word of the Lord. Accordingly, after next week, Lord willing, we will resume our time together in moving forward into Deuteronomy Chapter 15. So be it!
"At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and shall deposit it in your town. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do. Amen. 

				
This morning’s benediction is 1 Peter 2:9+10. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession,  that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people,  but now you are the people of God;  you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Amen.