1 Chronicles 23:14

"Handfuls of Purpose,"

For All Gleaners

"Moses the man of God" 1 Chronicles 23:14 .

A beautiful description of any man. A possible description of every man. A needful description of each man if he is to abide in his Father's house for ever. Some men have attained eminence in godliness. No renown is to be compared with this, no influence is equal to that which arises from such recognition. When is a man a "man of God"? When he believes in God's existence, when he is assured of God's providence, when he has sunk his will in the divine purpose, when he lives and moves and has his being in God. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." Is there not something suggestive in this continuity of terms? Moses was the man of God, Jesus was the Son of God, and every believer in Christ may claim his own degree of that same sonship. Moses was faithful as a servant, Christ was faithful as a Son. Jesus Christ advances us in nomenclature; once he called us disciples, then he called us servants, then he called us friends: what he will call us when we meet him in heaven, life's conflict over, who can tell? He will then find some new and dearer name for us, and by the bestowal of a new designation he will awaken still warmer love, and bring us to some higher estate of life. When God gives a name he expresses by it some growth in character. God's names are not mere appellations, signs by which men are known one from another; they are characters, they are credentials, they are approbations. There is no higher title than to be a man of God, a slave of Christ, a temple of the Holy Ghost. At the time of the writing of this Book of Chronicles, Moses had long been dead, yet still he was remembered by his piety; he might have been called the legislator of Israel, the statesman of Israel, the greatest mind ever known in Israel: yet by none of these designations is he recorded, but by the simple yet grand indication that he was "the man of God."