Life is filled with peaks and valleys.
A peak is something excellent that happens in your life, something great, and something to celebrate and remember. The birth of your child — that is a high point in your life. The day you get married — that is a peak.
During those moments, it’s easy to be a Christian. "God is good," you think to yourself.
We all have our share of hardships, sickness and problems, but God also allows us to experience a few mountaintop, spiritual experiences along our journey, times when we are able to see his glory and his power at work.
In the very peak, in the very zenith, in the very glory, in the very consummation of all of the work of his life, Moses, that great patriarch of the faith was only allowed to view the promised land at the highest point of the mountain called Pisgah.
"Get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan" (Deuteronomy 3:27, KJV).
Moses was not allowed to come off of that mountain. God wanted to reward him for his faithfulness. What a wonderful experience that must have been. Taken to the highest peak and shown the promised land.
Just as God led Moses to the mountaintop, he has a mountaintop experience for you and me.
There is joy on the mountaintop, but it was not designed to last long. For there is a greater need down in the valley. We cannot live on the mountaintop, we must climb the mountain and experience intimate fellowship with God, and then we must take what we have gained on the mountaintop back down into the valley.
We must witness the glory of God on the mountaintop so that we can minister to the misery of man in the valley. At the bottom of the mountain, there is always a suffering, needy world that needs the ministry of those who have been on a mountaintop with God.
We must meet God both in the secret place and in the public place of worship so that we can meet the sinful and needy people in the marketplace. The mountaintop experience will touch you, change you, heal you. It will make you totally free, and the vision will be clear. It restores you, it renews you.
God makes us come alive by being in his presence, and he shows us the right perspective for his people. May you be blessed to see his glory on the mountaintop.
Montgomery is the pastor of God’s Grace Worship Center and a member of the United Ministerial Alliance of Liberty County.