Continuing with the theme from last week’s blog of Me Myself and I, which was concerned with our being in Christ, this week we will look at another aspect of our relationship with Jesus.
This will be through the Israelite’s desert experience after being led by God to leave Egypt to reach the promised land. In fairness a large part of my writing this issue was inspired by a Codes in the Bible presentation called The Hebrew Covenant in the Wilderness that still controls you, which is available through You Tube. I would also add that the following comments will be my slant/interpretation of what was shown.
Starting with a question that surprised me when it occurred, what was the importance of the wilderness in respect of reaching the Promised Land?
As I understand the wilderness was seen by those at that time as a place of chaos, and of course a barren uncultivated uninhabited/unhabitable land. Yet God was going to lead some 2 million people of all ages from the bondage of Egyptian slavery to His promised land flowing with milk and honey through this desert wasteland where nothing to sustain this number of people would be available.
The answer to the question I posed shows why our father’s wisdom far exceeds ours as it was intended that God’s chosen would be cleansed by their wilderness experience of previously being in Egypt and all its resultant human influences from their time there; During their wilderness time God intended them to solely depend on Him for all their needs rather than relying on provision from others.
Because if they didn’t have that dependence, the Promised Land would then become a very dangerous influence that would not bless but cause them to forget God and thereby become independent of Him to their great cost as they would subsequently prove.
Despite God’s miraculous provision through when they escaped from Egypt along with the following events at the Red Sea, they still created and worshipped an idol before attacking Moses’s leadership and thereby God, claiming that they had been much better off in Egypt! After all, as they expressed, food was available and varied whereas what did they have in the desert?
Obviously, only God and His miraculous provision. As their complaining reached a crescendo, they conveniently forgot about their harsh conditions of slavery and how they had sought release through God’s hand when suffering under the impossible penal Egyptian regime.
History has been repeated!
For their leader Moses it was certainly a case of been here before as he had already spent considerable time in the wilderness. Forty years to be precise following his time as an Egyptian prince and a victorious army commander to ultimately become just an anonymous humble employed herdsman in the far reach of the desert, until God called Him.
Similarly with our promised land of Jesus, after John’s baptism and receiving of the Holy Spirit, He also departed to the anonymity of the wilderness. Only on this occasion it was not to be distant but close to God and where He defeated Satan by saying it is written and then quoting scripture (Matthew 4 v 7-10).
The Israelites looked back to their yesterday, of their time in Egypt, Moses in his today replied to God’s calling by citing his inability to speak whereas Jesus used His today for the world’s tomorrow.
The point is that when we come to God through Jesus where the initial euphoria of release and cleansing manifests so abundantly, we also need that period of wilderness as well! Like the Israelites and Moses, each of us need to get rid of our dependence on humanity along with our dependence on Me, Myself and I, aka our respective limited and restricted human abilities to become totally dependent on Him.
Thereby entering more fully God’s Promised Land.
So, we need to remember in our wilderness time before we move on that:
Only by faith is it possible to please God (Hebrews 11 v 6), we can do all things through Christ that strengthen us (Philippians 4 v 13) All our needs are met through Christ (Philippians 4 v 19) We were chosen before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1 v 4) to become rooted and established in love (Eph 3 v 17) we are more than overcomers (Romans 8 v 37)
Instead of:
Being like the Israelites in the wilderness where Psalm 78 v 41 confirms, where those in the desert rebelled against God by limiting Him.
When our desert moment arrives, where barrenness is the only thing we can see, be it in finance, a medical situation, an expectation, relationship or our calling. Can we be patient, steadfastly faithful and instead of going our way as an escape, go deeper into the Word to keep our eyes on Him. No matter the time taken?
Because we can only turn the corner when our Lord says we are ready, which is when we are dependent on Him and not ourselves or others.
Put another way, the whole point about the wilderness time of preparation is that we make a choice of either taking the doomed to failure route of independence, or seeking to be in, dependence.
That’s what keeps us in the promised land of Jesus.
With all blessings
Tony
PS This blog is normally updated each Monday – apologies again for the lateness but I wanted to produce the best issue I could