Climbing the mountain may contain blessings for others:
Gen 22: 15-18
And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
- I can assure you that the reward is greater than the sacrifice.
- If we delay our obedience, we delay His provision.
Mountain of Transfiguration
So we’ve heard about the healing, deliverance, salvation, and provision that awaits at the mountaintop, but there is something else.
We behold his glory:
Exodus 33: 18, 20
And he (Moses) said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he (God) said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Matthew 17: 1-3
And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with him.
John 1:14
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
- What happens at the top of the mountain? We receive further revelation of who God is, and through this revelation, we are transformed.
Exodus 34: 1-3
And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. And be ready in the morning and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.
Exodus 34: 29-30
And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.
- When you’ve been on the mountain top with Jesus, you don’t come down the same manner of person.
- When we come down, we come down with instruction and direction.
- We will not come down empty-handed; we will come down transformed and equipped to serve others.
- I recently went through something that God delivered me from, and during that trial, I reached the mountaintop by the grace of God. When I came down, I had a testimony and a newfound fervor for my calling. I shared this with a couple of my friends, and it was as if they couldn’t recognize me. The way I spoke, my demeanor, my spirit—it was all different. Solely because being on the mountaintop, in the presence of God, transforms you.
- Moses did not come down so they could worship him as king, he came down to help them reconcile with God.
The mountain prepares us for the promise, and sometimes, the promise is a battle. The children of Israel had to fight the Canaanites in order to take the land. It is important that we do not bypass the mountain or else we will not be equipped to obtain our promise.
We climb because He who waits for us at the top is better than anything we have or desire.