Unbound (Part 3): Prepare For The Promised Land
Photo Courtesy of Josh Carter
Testing…Testing…
“Testing” is a pivotal piece that God uses to bring about His desired purposes in our lives. And yet, the Lord’s testing is something we often miss the mark on entirely. For many of us, we’ve simply forgotten the Lord tests His people at all. Others of us have been taught “there’s no need to prepare for them”. Or worse yet, God’s testing has been misconstrued and manipulated into being a bad thing. Thankfully, when we abandon our own misconceptions & turn to His Word—
We Find Power & Purpose In The Lord’s Testing.
In the book of Deuteronomy, God’s people are commanded to remember how the Lord led them through the wilderness for forty years. They were to recall how God had “humbled & tested them in order to determine what was in their hearts” (Deuteronomy 8:2). In Job Ch. 7, we’re given a revelation of how constantly God thinks of us, how He “examines us every morning & tests us every moment” (Job 7:17-18, NLT). And in 1 Peter 1:6-7, we find the Lord “tests the genuineness of our faith” in the midst of various trials. Like gold that passes through the fire of refinement, “our faith is refined by fire in order to bring glory & praise to Jesus”. Irregardless of the season—
The Lord is always cultivating the fruit of righteousness.
This is why we have to be increasingly vigilant in our dry seasons & exercise Godly discernment. There is always more at stake than what is visible to our natural eyes, which is why we can’t afford to agree with the enemy’s lies. As God’s people, we have to remember that faith in Jesus is never a fruitless endeavor. We have to remember that the desert is never meant to be the destination. And to know, with Christ-centered conviction, that whatever challenge you face or test you take—
You are not called to die in this desert.
The Lord is humbling you. The Father loves you & cannot stop thinking about you & engaging with you on a moment-by-moment basis. The genuineness of your faith isn’t being punished, it is being purified for great glory. The Israelites were tested in the wilderness, Jesus was tested in the wilderness, and as a person of God, you are also being tested by the Lord of Heaven Himself. Because you are called to intimately know Jesus & become like Him in every way, the Holy Spirit is preparing you today.
The Lord is preparing your heart for his promised land.
What are you rehearsing?
“For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”
—Jesus (Matthew 12:34, BSB)
Whether we like it or not, our words matter. The internal dialogue we maintain, the thoughts & opinions we openly express—every single word we speak carries weight. As Proverbs 18:21 says, our words carry the power of life or death. The bottom line is—
The Fruit of your lips reveals the focus of your heart.
The nation of Israel continuously “grumbled & complained” about their circumstances, the Lord’s chosen leadership, and ultimately about God Himself. Day after day, they rehearsed a report that was faithless, fearful, and ultimately reflective of their eventual failure. As the 12 spies returned with a report of God’s Promised Land, and in the middle of their most trying time of testing, their true colors were revealed.
10 of the spies brought distressing news to the people of Israel, stating the land was full of “intimidating, giant men”. While the other two spies, Joshua & Caleb, spoke with great assurance of the provision of the land & God’s ability to deliver on what He had already promised. The “majority” report, the report of man, was full of fear & inferiority. The minority report, the report of the remnant of God, was full of faith & opportunity. With the exception of a few, an entire generation fell into unbelief & forfeited their entry into the Promised Land. Reminding us of Jesus’ powerful words found in Matthew 7:13-14, in which He urges us to:
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
It’s time for the “conversation” to fundamentally change for the people of God. It’s time to reject the sin of complaining & grumbling, which ultimately taints the purity of our heart & blinds us to the goodness of God. It’s time to embrace Jesus with a heart of gratitude &—
Give God A life of unending praise.
*For Believers in Christ, the Israelites’ time of testing in the wilderness provides an eye-opening illustration. Those who choose the “report of fear” find themselves marching in the dry & arid places until they collapse. Because their decision is devoid of faith, they inhabit a place that’s ultimately devoid of fruit. But the Lord always has a remnant. The remnant are those who choose “The Lord’s report”. The Lord’s remnant are those who advance & reap the Promises of God. Because they are planted in abiding faith in Jesus Christ, they inhabit a land flowing with milk & honey (they live the abundant life).
The heart of this post is to “come out of agreement” with the blinding lies of the enemy & “come into agreement” with the freeing Truth of God’s Word. May the revelation of His blessing, His mystery, and His Promise reignite your faith in Jesus.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, thank you for awakening us to the consequence of choosing life (faith) or death (unbelief). No matter how narrow & constrained the path may appear, we ask you to lead us in the company of people who choose Your Way. Help us daily rehearse the Truth of Your Word, so it floods our hearts & overflows in our lives. Empower us to take Your tests with unflinching faith & to build a testimony of total trust in Jesus.
Don’t drink His blessings in vain
According to Jesus, there’s only one proper way to operate in the blessing of God. We’re to “seek first His Kingdom & His righteous way of living, and then all we need will be taken care of”. Unfortunately, we often allow our spiritual enemy to convince us to do the exact opposite. We embrace satan’s perversion of this process, which tempts us to take our eyes off of our Provider & to fixate on a perceived “lack of provision”. But as Hebrews 6:7-8 (TPT) clearly shows us, the problem we face is never a lack of provision.
“For men’s hearts are just like the soil that drinks up the showers which often fall upon it. Some soil will yield crops as God’s blessing upon the field. But if the field continues to produce only thorns and thistles a curse hangs over it and it will be burned.”
The devil wants us to believe our complaining is justified, but if we begin to recognize the abundance of His provision, we will be mortified by how inexcusable our complaining actually is. This is why we have to reject this broken world’s way of thinking & stop drinking the Lord’s blessing in vain. We need to embrace the corrective conviction of the Spirit & recognize that, even in the times we may experience a “sense of lack” on our end—
the lord Himself never lacks any good thing.
The Kingdom of God is here & ready to be revealed by those are who willing to receive the unending spiritual riches of King Jesus. Don’t spend another moment burning your blessings. Put to death your complaints & take hold of the life of Christ. Set your eyes on God the Provider & watch as the Holy Spirit takes you higher. Let only the fruit of praise be found on your lips as the soil of your heart soaks in the blessed reality that—
Jesus paid the Ultimate price so you could bring Him Unending praise.
“Through Him, therefore, let us at all times offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name.”
Hebrews 13:15 (AMP)
marvel in his mystery
Each leg of our spiritual journey is intended to bring us closer to the Lord. As we move closer to Him, several things should take place. We should become more intimately acquainted with His ways, we should mature spiritually, and as a result of growing closer to Him—
We should ultimately reflect the Lord’s glory.
When it came to the basic stages of their faith-experience, the Israelites embraced this process. They embraced their need for deliverance from Egypt, which represented spiritual bondage. They were willing to pass through the Red Sea, which illustrated spiritual baptism. But when they entered the wilderness stage of their God-destiny, nearly all of them rejected what the Lord was doing. The great “unknown” is the place we’re supposed to mature the most, but as the Israelites reveal—
Our greatest missteps often take place in the mystery of God.
“He fed you manna in the wilderness, [a substance] which your fathers did not know, so that He might humble you [by dependence on Him] and that He might test you, to do good [things] for you at the end.”
Deuteronomy 8:16 (AMP)
The manna God reigned down from Heaven was one of the greatest mysteries revealed to His people. It was such a mystery, in fact, that the Hebrew definition for manna is defined as, “what is it?”. By in large, God’s people were obsessed with “what” manna was, when they should have sought to understand “why” He gave it to them. As Moses revealed in verse 3, it was to reveal that “people do not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” And this fundamental truth was echoed by Jesus as He underwent testing (and satan’s temptation) in His own wilderness experience.
“For our spiritual wealth is in him, like hidden treasure waiting to be discovered—heaven’s wisdom and endless riches of revelation knowledge.”
Colossians 2:3 (TPT)
There will be moments in your wilderness season that you receive things from the Lord that you won’t initially be able to wrap your mind around. He’ll show you things in His Word you’ve never seen, He’ll open your ears to hear things you’ve never heard His Spirit say, and you will have to make a daily choice concerning what He delivers to you. Will you be like those whose premature craving for the “meatier” things of the Lord caused them to miss the manna? Or with a heart of humility, will you welcome His daily instruction & each piece of the puzzle He brings? Ultimately—
Will You partner with the holy spirit to put the pieces together?
As God’s word rains down in your life, you won’t always have to know “what it is” in order to have faith in “what He’s doing”. When you know the Lord is feeding your soul, you can experience peace in His Presence. When you know Jesus is humbling your heart to properly receive His hidden treasure, you can experience joy in the journey. When you know that, at the the end of the day, God is working all of these things together for your ultimate good—
You can marvel in his mystery.
Press Into His Promise
“When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days, they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh, and brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the land’s fruit.
But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people [of Canaan], for they are too strong for us.” So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land which they had spied out, saying…There we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
“Then all the congregation [of Israel] raised their voices and cried out, and the people wept that night. So they said one to another, “Let us appoint a [new] leader and return to Egypt.”
Numbers 13:25-26, 31-33; Numbers 14:1, 4 (AMP)
When you magnify your giants, you minimize God. You literally lose sight of His presence, His purpose, and His Promise. Because you’re no longer looking through God’s perspective, your vision of yourself shrinks (“we were like grasshoppers”) & so does the territory you were supposed to occupy. If you ultimately accept the bad report, you fall into spiritual infidelity & eventual unbelief &—
Unbelief leads to a life of unfulfilled promise.
For those of us who have been reborn & adopted into the family of God, we have to “get over our giants”. We’ve got to take Proverbs 14:12 to heart & recognize, “there’s a way that may seem right to us, but in the end it leads to death”. At times, faith in Jesus will lead you to depend on God to such an extent that it appears “detrimental”. Faith in Jesus will draw lines of separation that will appear “divisive”. At some point—
Faith In jesus propels you to a point of Pure foolishness.
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 1:18 (BSB)
From a worldly perspective, the “giants” we face will always appear to have the upper-hand. Goliath was at the top of the food chain & nobody, including “God’s people” (King Saul & his army), could foresee this giant’s downfall. But young David did. David was mocked & ridiculed by the opposition, doubted by his own family, and even the family of God. And yet, he was the only one who had the faith to fight. We need to press into the Lord’s promise & find the faith that moves mountains. We need to press into His promise & come into our God-given inheritance. We need to press into His promise &—
Claim victory through the power of christ’s cross.
DOn’t look back
“For again, the Scriptures say, If only today you would listen to his voice. Don’t make him angry by hardening your hearts, as you did in the wilderness rebellion. The same people who were delivered from bondage and brought out of Egypt by Moses, were the ones who heard and still rebelled. They grieved God for forty years by sinning in their unbelief, until they dropped dead in the desert.
So God swore an oath that they would never enter into his calming place of rest all because they disobeyed him.”
Hebrews 3:15-18 (TPT)
Life in the Spirit is never stagnant. We’re either marching forward in faith or falling back into bondage. It’s no wonder Scripture warns us time & again to “not look back”. Instead of fleeing destruction, Lot’s wife looked back & breathed her last. Instead of abandoning the barrenness of Egypt, a generation of God’s people dropped dead in the desert. And the One whom we follow in discipleship tells us:
“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back [to the things behind] is fit for the Kingdom of God.
—Jesus (Luke 9:21, AMPC)
If you’ve never been born-again, it’s time to call out to God & believe in Jesus. If you’ve simply lost your belief in the goodness of God & His plan, now is the time to repent & start again. Be a part of the remnant who boldly lay claim to God’s best.
Be a part of the remnant who Enter the Promise of God’s Rest.
Keep growing in your walk with Jesus
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today’s Takeaways
Prepare your heart for God’s promised land.
Claim victory through the power of christ’s cross.
The remnant claim their god-given inheritance.