I want to talk to you about the story of the children of Israel. After God rescued them from Egypt He told them to take the land He had promised them. I'm not going to rewrite the story but as always I will tell you to read Exodus 13 for yourself.
I'm going to give you the Gena translation.
God brings the children of Israel out of captivity from Egypt and wants them to go to the land of Canaan, a land He has promised them will be theirs.
As usual the Israelites are leary of the plan so God tells Moses to send out some spies to scout out the new unknown land. He tells Moses to pick one man from each of the twelves tribes. The men are picked and Moses tells them when they return to bring back some of the fruit of the land since it was the season for ripe grapes.
Long story short at the end of 40 days the 12 returned from exploring the land. As Moses instructed they came back carrying a branch they cut off with a single cluster of grapes. It took two men to carry them on a pole they were so huge. The spies came back to Moses and the whole Israelite community and reported to them that the land was in deed a good fertile land just like God said and they had the fruit to prove it. However, they also told the Israelites there was a problem, the people that lived there were definitely big and strong. Most of the spies discouraged the people from moving forward all but one, Caleb, he said
Numbers 13:30 “we should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
But the rest of the spies said no way they will kick our butts! The guys are giants we looked like grasshoppers next to them.
The people freak out like people do when they give into fear. Joshua and Caleb, who believed God, tried to persuade them to go into the land but the people started talking about stoning them. And then GOD showed up.
Numbers 14:10-11 And all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Now the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel. Then the LORD said to Moses: “How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?”
Bottom line in the story, God told the Israelites that none of them would enter the promised land except for Caleb and his descendants. The children of Israel ended up wandering in the desert 40 years for their disobedience before they got to the promise land.
I want us to look at a couple of things in this story. First the problem with the Israelites was they believed in God but they didn't believe God, they didn't trust God.
Second they allowed fear to make them disobedient to something God told them to do. The leaders and their families suffered for their disobedience.
Now let's apply this to our lives. What desert are we wandering in because we are being rebellious?
Have you ever thought not trusting God is the same as being rebellious? We try to justify it by saying we just don't have enough faith, we even compare ourselves to someone we think has more faith. I know I have used that line but no matter how we try and make ourselves feel better we are being rebellious and that is a sin.
Have you ever felt like you were just existing? Like your having a dry spell? You don't feel connected to God and your just idle. You may want to ask yourself why.
You may be wandering in a desert because God has promised you something and you believe in Him you just don't trust Him to make it happen.
All 12 spies saw the same thing, the good land and the huge men but only one man believed God in spite of what he saw. Sometimes God promises us something and just because He promises it doesn't mean it's going to be a cake walk. We still have to decide to move forward in fear and trust Him. Our part is the deciding and moving forward His part is making it all work out.
I remember when I was praying for a bigger house. I prayed for quite a while then one rainy day the Lord told me to take the kids and go find our house. I won't bore you with the whole story but we found the house that day. The kids and I had a list of everything we wanted in our new home and each thing was checked off the list as we walked through it.
The owners were in the middle of fixing it up so we even got to pick the color carpet and tile. We had to sell our house first but the real estate market was doing well and our house was really cute so the owner felt comfortable about us signing a contract.
Little did we know 9/11 was right around the corner and the market came to a stand still. Nothing was selling. I decided to let the owner out of the contract because we didn't want to hold them up from possibly selling the home to a buyer that didn't have to sell their house first.
But God made a promise that wasn't contingent on the market. The sellers ended up buying our house so we could buy the new one.
I remember a friend of mine asking me if I was sure I knew what I was doing. She asked how I was going to pay the mortgage as it was double what I was paying at the time. She reminded me I was a single parent on a fixed income and the economy was not doing so well because of 9/11.
I told her it wasn't my responsibility, it was the Lord's. If He said we could have the house He would have to figure out how to pay for it. I saw huge grapes she saw giants.
A few months after we moved in the house I had an altercation with my boss. He was not the nicest man to work for and he backed out on a promise he made when I accepted the job at his company. When I pushed back he actually said to me “you will have to deal with what happens, I know you just bought a house and you need this job, I own you now.” True story.
I let him know in no uncertain terms that no man owned me and resigned. You see his threat didn't scare me because I knew God was responsible for my outcome not this ego maniac man I worked for.
I didn't just believe in God to get the house I trusted Him to take care of the land he promised me at that time.
Gems we have to accept Jesus to be saved but our journey doesn't stop there. We have to trust Him to grow.
Most people believe in God, even people who don't accept Christ. Even the devil believes in God. God tells us that faith without works is dead. Usually the thing that keeps people from the works part is they don't trust God.
James 2:19-20 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
Gems if you have been a Christian for 5, 10 or maybe 20 years and you don't feel like your walk has changed much there's a problem. If you don't see much of a difference from the time you first accepted Christ and there's not a noticeable difference between you and the world you may have to ask yourself why. What are you doing?
When we don't trust God we become miserable in our walk. We lose the joy of our salvation, not our salvation but our joy for sure.
Gems what has God promised you? What land has he called you to? What has He asked you to believe Him for?
Where are you living in fear because you are rebellious and don't believe or trust God?
How many times are you going to walk in circles before you take the promise God has for you?
Ya know in those 40 years a whole new generation was born and they entered the promise land. I'm sure some of them asked what were our parents waiting for? Why were we born in a dry desert instead of this beautiful land if God told them it was theirs.
I'm sure you agree we don't want our kids seeing us as rebellious parents who don't trust God because guess what they will probably follow our lead and end up in their own desert.
The good news is Gems that God can wait longer than you can wander. He will still carry you through when your ready to trust.
Let's be the generation that enters our promise land. Let's not just believe there is a God let's trust that what He says is true.
Let your faith have noticeable works so the world can not only see a difference but want to be part of it.
Decide today to live in a no desert zone!
No comments:
Post a Comment