MT 7:25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds
blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its
foundation on the rock. ... What God does when He sends people into the
wilderness is He allows the house of our established life to be shaken and
tested right down to its foundation, and everything that was not built in that
home by Him falls off and crashes to the ground.
Most of the time after the shaking stops we are left standing
and looking in amazement and bewilderment at a very cracked and bare foundation
that is in desperate need of repair before anything new can be built upon it
again. God wants to build skyscrapers of His power and goodness upon our lives,
but first He must show us our need to repair the extensive damage to our
foundations. Also, the higher a building is going to be built, the deeper the
foundation must be in order to support it, so God will often spend years
deepening the foundations of our relationship with Him and the character of
Jesus in us so the building of love that is built upon that foundation can stand
strong and not fall when the trials and temptations of our promised land
come.
DT 2:7 The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of
your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These
forty years the LORD your God has been with you, and you have not lacked
anything.
Now God has accomplished a lot of work in His people and most
of our foundations are repaired and deepened enough for us all to begin crossing
our spiritual Jordan river, and to enter our promised land of revival and
empowerment together now. But you can be
sure that Jesus the rock and foundation of our life will make sure that there
are no remaining cracks that we are unaware of first. How many of us thought and
hoped that we were done with our wilderness, only to find out there was still
more critical issues that needed to be addressed and healed first?
We had no choice but to face them and press on. We've all been
there and some of us are still there. Thank God that He didn't send us forward before we
were ready; otherwise we would have faced failure and disaster once one of those
unseen cracks gave way under pressure. Now is the time to face any last cracks
in our foundations and to finally go
forward. Below is kind of a list of
things that we must do in order to leave our wilderness.
1. We must face the real "us" with all of our sin-habits,
selfishness, unforgiveness, unhealed pain from the past, and any ways that we do
not love and serve God or people properly. You see, it's not just about doing
the right things; it's about doing the right things "through" Him.
2. Once we have faced all the above issues and dragged them
into the light we must replace the old lies that Satan sowed into us with the
truth of God and begin to walk in it and master these areas. We must face our
dislikes, and be denied our likes to kill their power over us.
3. We must also face any areas of unforgiveness, bitterness,
resentment, and anger toward people or God, and any ways that we have hurt
others. God will often send us people just like ourselves as a mirror to show us
ourselves and just how unloving and selfish we can be.
4. We must have our main gifts revealed to us and develop them
as the Holy Spirit leads us to. This may mean being discipled, mentored,
trained, being submitted to, and corrected by those God says to. It also means
learning to serve out of love alone in order to feed Jesus' sheep.
5. We must have any and all idols (anything that we use in
place of God) revealed to us and our obsessions for them broken. We will have
any Isaac's or Ishmael's revealed to us during this time and some will stay,
some will be taken, and some will be tested and restored later.
6. We must learn to be led by the Holy Spirit, God's truth,
and His love alone, rather than by ours or someone else's flesh. We must get rid
of all distractions and hindrances that do not bear good fruit for God and focus
our efforts only on what God wants us to be doing for Him.
7. We must have our intimacy with God well established through
prayer, reading the word, and in whatever other practices God leads us into. We
must know God's "heart and ways", not just His word, and we learn to live by
every word that proceeds from His mouth real time.
LK 10:2 He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the
workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers
into his harvest field.
The wilderness is mainly about getting to know the real us,
the real God, and then having Jesus transform us into Him. Obedience to God's
moment by moment direction and His word is the key to going forward. Living a
consistently holy, loving, and obedient kingdom life will open the door for us
to finally go forward in this end time harvest. Many new believers will be
looking to you as a spiritual parent once they get saved, so the only example we
want them or the world to see is Jesus Christ genuinely living through us. The
Israelites failed a couple of times once they entered their promised land
because they were unaware of a few areas that had not yet been dealt with. Just
know and understand that when you are truly ready to leave your wilderness; you
will. This harvest is very plentiful and it is all around us; not just in some
other place, so God wants you activated as soon as possible. Just do your best
to comply with whatever changes that He wants, and soon you will get out of your
wilderness. You will make it with His help!
JOS 1:10 So Joshua ordered the officers of the people: 11 "Go
through the camp and tell the people, `Get your supplies ready. Three days from
now you will cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the
LORD your God is giving you for your own.' "
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