Ex 13:21+22, And the Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people. 
	This is a tremendous passage recounting the grace of the Lord to lead and to guide His people in the way in which they should go. This demonstrates the faithfulness and the mercy and the manifested presence of the Lord with those whom He so chooses unto Himself. It is our safety and our assurance that we will not be abandoned in any measure as the Lord goes before us and guides us in the every path of our lives. Whether that path is our physical or spiritual walk, He is there with us and showing us the way in which we are to proceed into all the fullness of Jesus Christ. 
	We see how important that assurance was to Moses as he was leading the Israelites out of their bondage in Egypt. Please turn ahead to Exodus, Chapter 33, to the point at which Moses was given the 10 Commandments in order to show the revealed heart of God to the people. Ex 33:12-17, 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." Then he said to Him, "If Thy presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Thy sight, I and Thy people? Is it not by Thy going with us, so that we, I and Thy people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?" And the Lord said to Moses, "I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight, and I have known you by name." 
    	Primary to the very core of our hearts is the indisputable fact that the Lord is with us wherever He leads us. We are never left alone. Admittedly, there are times, in our disobedience, when it seems that we are all alone, but that can never be the case in Jesus Christ. As we are so encouraged by the Writer to the Hebrews in Heb 13:5+6, Let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you," so that we confidently say, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What shall man do to me?" 
	The Lord is always with us, indwelling our hearts. His Omnipresence makes it an absolute certainty that whenever we turn to Him and seek Him, He will be found to be with us, holding us and guiding us and keeping us, no matter how the circumstances may appear. 
	The other reality is that, when we look at Him, rather than the path upon which He leads us, we will always see His glory. Just as Moses asked the Lord to reveal His glory unto Moses, so do we become those blessed ones who get greater and greater glimpses of the Glory of God as He works and manifests Himself in every earthly situation and trial and dilemma. If our eyes remain set on looking to Him, we will see Him in the gracious manner of His overruling Omnipotence and Omniscience. He always, always, does everything perfectly and in the positively correct time. No errors. No mistakes. No fumbles. His way is indisputably the very best way for our feet to tread.  
	Notice that the nation of Israel was fully shown this truth in even the days that they were to move ahead and those days that they were to remain in camp. Please turn to Num 9:15-19. There was no detail too small for the Lord in the leading forth of His people. They may not have known what was going on, but they knew enough to stay still or to move only as the Lord so went before them. Num 9:15-19, Now on the day that the tabernacle was erected the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, and in the evening it was like the appearance of fire over the tabernacle, until morning. So it was continuously; the cloud would cover it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out; and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp. At the command of the Lord the sons of Israel would set out, and at the command of the Lord they would camp; as long as the cloud settled over the tabernacle, they remained camped. Even when the cloud lingered over the tabernacle for many days, the sons of Israel would keep the Lord's charge and not set out. 
	The Lord makes His way known to us, through the Holy Spirit’s prompting in our hearts. As we learn to listen and to obey, which is the key point, it becomes more and more evident that manner in which we are to go. Too often, Christians relegate God to a sort of hierarchal type of leading in their obedience. We look to God to deal with the large and impossible issues, and then count on our own smarts to handle the trivial and day-to-day items, cutting God out of the picture altogether. 
The reality is that there are no small matters and large matters in some kind of hierarchy of dependence upon God. Either we depend upon Him for everything, and obey as He prompts in both the large and the very smallest areas of our lives, or we relegate Him to the role of some divine Butler, calling on Him only when we need Him to meet our needs. This is such an audacious reversal of all that is in the heart of God for the sake of His people. We are the ones who serve Him, not vice versa. We are the ones who respond in obedience to His every prompting and we rely utterly upon Him to be and to supply everything needed for our service unto Him. 
Did you catch the import of that fact? So often Christians are pounded over and over again with the false concept that God will supply our every need for our comfort and for our wants and for our physical enjoyment. The full reality is that we are here to serve and to serve to the utmost in accordance to the pleasure of the heart of God. When we look at those apostles and prophets who served God, we will most often see trial and persecution and tribulation and danger and dispute and abandonment at the hands of this age. However, in the depth and the knowledge and the joy of the Lord, their testimonies are unparalleled. 
Listen to the Apostle Paul in this matter, Phil 3:7-11. Phil 3:7-11, But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 
	The road we walk on this earth is the one that is in service to God. We are not here to concentrate on our betterment as a people for ourselves. We are not be guided into a greater level of consciousness and success for the sake of becoming great and awesome and finding fulfillment in the wealth and fortunes and honor of this realm. So many Christians are so focused on their own success that they lose sight of the reason that we are kept by God on this earth. We are here to serve Him and His glory and His Name’s sake. We are here to be instantly obedient and always available to His call of service. We will obviously enjoy the benefits of being closer and closer to God, basking in the beauty of all that service entails in our tremendous opportunity to know Him more and more intimately. The key, however, is that it is still service for the sake of honoring and blessing Him, not seeking after ourselves!
	This was fully evident in the manner in which the Children of Israel were dealt with in their wilderness travels. Please turn to Deut 8:1-10. Deut 8:1-10, "All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers. And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you shall eat food without scarcity, in which you shall not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. 
	Throughout all the time in the wilderness, God was leading HIs people and caring for His people in the manner in which they would be taught that they were a people whose entire heritage was tied into the glory of the Lord. He would go before them and He would guide them. He would be their King and they would be His people who would serve Him in humbleness of heart and spirit, counting on Him to supply their every need. He would be exalted in the manner in which they offered Him their obedience and their worship and their service with hearts that wanted a living relationship with Him. 
And He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord… Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son… When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. The entire focus was that they belonged to the Lord and in their humble service unto Him, He trained and disciplined them as sons, as His very own family so that they would know and bless Him.
All the goodness and enjoyment and pleasure that we receive in this realm comes from God for the sake of His glory and His testimony. We benefit fully in the working of His hand of operation, but we must never think that we deserve any of it! It all comes from God and is to be returned unto God with hearts of thanksgiving and praise for Who He is and what He has done! 
Again, looking to the wilderness experience of the Children of Israel as recorded in Deut 8:15-18, He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint. In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, 'My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.' "But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 
The key to this morning, if we leave here with no other understanding, is that we are here, not for ourselves but for God. Everything that He does in the perfect guidance of the Holy Spirit is to cause us to come to know Him and learn to live in a relationship in which He is our everything, both great and small. We have been chosen, not because of what we have done or can do or based on any meritorious measure as to our standing and or character. We have been chosen by God, from before the eternal ages were even in place to be His people. As His people, He will always be with us guiding, instructing, and supplying everything necessary for our more perfect service of praise to the Lord God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, Our Lord and Our Savior.
Deut 32:9-12, "For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance. "He found him in a desert land, And in the howling waste of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye. "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, That hovers over its young, He spread His wings and caught them, He carried them on His pinions. "The Lord alone guided him, And there was no foreign god with him. 
	We belong to God as His portion and His inheritance, and we are so blessed in this miraculous showering of His Love and Grace and Mercy in Jesus Christ. We have been made to be His family, now and evermore for His glory alone! So be it!
And the Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people. Amen. 

	
This morning’s benediction is Ps 145:3-7. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Thy works to another, And shall declare Thy mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of Thy majesty, And on Thy wonderful works, I will meditate. And men shall speak of the power of Thine awesome acts; And I will tell of Thy greatness. They shall eagerly utter the memory of Thine abundant goodness, And shall shout joyfully of Thy righteousness. Amen.