Right now you need a revelation that Jesus is just as alive today as He was during His ministry in Judea. Often, we tend to separate the two stages of Jesus’s life (divine and Son of Man), we see them as two different books on our shelves. One speaks of who Jesus was for those three and a half years, and the second one about what Jesus could be like one day.
We look at Jesus as the lamb of sacrifice, or the humble servant during the time of His ministry and assume that nothing has changed. But what does Jesus actually look like now in terms of his nature, power, authority and existence? Then we have the second question of how do we engage and relate to Him today?
Do you love God, if so how can you prove it? Jesus laid out for us a simple yet profound formula on how to demonstrate our love for God, but what is it?
Everyone
wants to remain in their own proverbial Eden and wait for God to bring them
blessings on a silver platter. It’s no wonder why we look down upon seasons of
difficulties or even the idea of having to go through a wilderness to arrive at
the place God has called us to. At times people go into the wilderness by
choice, such as with Jesus and Moses. But there are other times when people
like David were forced to run into it, because their life depended on it.
As
we’ve seen over the past few weeks David really hasn’t done anything wrong, he
served Saul faithfully, he protected the people from the Philistines and was
generally admired by many. The shepherd boy who killed Goliath and lulled Saul
to sleep at night stood as a paragon of virtue and the favor of God. But not
everyone appreciated what David was becoming. Saul was becoming increasingly
paranoid and his rage was replacing the place in his heart which used to be
filled with God’s anointing.
Repeatedly
Saul lost his temper and tried to impale David with his spear (1 Samuel 19:1-7), only to apologize later on
after Jonathan or another calmed him down. Saul reacted in this way because he
knew something was up, David was loved by the people, he was a mighty warrior
and now he had not only married his daughter Michal but made a covenant with
his son Jonathan, the heir-apparent to the throne of Israel. As far as Saul was
concerned David was fast becoming enemy number one and posed a threat to his
family, his kingship and his life.
Dark to Light
What does this have to do with us today? Not everyone has a
Saul in their lives who is watching and plotting against them with a murderous
paranoia. Yet at times it may feel that way, and even spiritually we have someone
even more broken than Saul who is working against us so that no one can take
his throne and replace his royal family.
Saul had fallen from God’s graces and was destined to be
replaced by God’s new anointed choice, David. We today can see ourselves playing
the role of David, as we look forward to the day when the wicked king is fully
dethroned and God allows us to walk into the fullness of our calling.
As I said we don’t always face a physical Saul in our life
but there is a spiritual one, one who is active and paranoid that at any moment
one of God’s anointed ones will rush into the castle and dethrone him. Satan
and his forces are like Saul, they have been entrenched and see themselves as
still having a legal right over their territory despite their falling away and
the stripping of God’s anointing from their lives. So, they go about and like
Saul they hurl their spears in an attempt to kill, discredit, or convert anyone
who poses a threat to their continued rule.
We don’t always face a physical Saul in our life but there is a spiritual one, one who is active and paranoid that at any moment one of God’s anointed ones will rush into the castle and dethrone him.
Like David we can’t just barge into that throne room after
we “kill Goliath,” no, to achieve real and lasting victory in our hearts we
need to go through the process of refinement that comes from entering and
abiding in the wilderness. Otherwise we end up being worse than those that we
replaced or ridiculed. Imagine if David had gone against his heart and just
straight up murdered Saul the first chance he got, would he still be a man
after God’s own heart, or would he have become worse than Saul. We can even
look at the lives of David’s descendants and see the answer to the question. People
like Absalom, Rehoboam, or Manasseh who allowed their hearts to be corrupted
and ended up as even more broken and wicked kings than Saul ever was.
This is why the wilderness is a necessity in our relationships with God, it refines our heart and takes us out from the place of Apprenticeship and brings us into Activation. Some people like David won’t have a choice in the matter, if they want to remain spiritually (or even naturally) alive long enough to fulfill God’s purpose for their lives.
Running Into the
Wilderness
In the opening of 1 Samuel 19 we don’t see a scared and cowardly
David looking to abandon His divine purpose in life because things got “too
hard.” This was a last resort to preserve his life and the calling God had
placed upon him. We see this play out in David’s request to Jonathan to find
out exactly what was going on in Saul’s heart. At first Saul once again
relented in 1 Samuel 19:6 but not long after Saul once again tried to turn
David into an unwilling wall ornament in 1 Samuel 19:9-10.
Now was the time to run, not out of cowardice, or an
abandoning of his calling but because God was orchestrating events to lure
David outside the comforts of the castle and his royal position and into the place
where his heart would be refined even further. It’s easy to get comfortable, it’s
happened to me and I know it has happened to you as well. Comfort leads to
contentment, and contentment leads to inactivity. This place of comfort is
something we all want to enjoy at some point but at the same time that comfort
has to power to smother the fire God has placed inside of us.
Comfort leads to contentment, and contentment leads to inactivity.
No one, or should I say very few, people want to abandon
those comforts and go out into the wilderness. In the castle David had food
brought to him, but in the wilderness he had to seek out his own food or rely
on others for help. The wilderness is one of the spiritual antidotes to our
pride and self-sufficiency. It’s the place that forces us to hold up our
priorities and relationship with God up against the realities of our hearts
desires. Those seasons of wilderness that we dread are really God’s method of
pruning our hearts and minds like one prunes a tree of fruit vine. In the wilderness
the dead branches of our heart, mind and desires are exposed and allowed to be
removed so the source of life can flow freely through us.
We’re not the only ones that must face these seasons of
wilderness refinement. As we’ve already seen Jesus and Moses both had seasons
like this, but so did Elijah, Paul, Jeremiah and a host of others who were used
mightily by God. The wilderness can be painful, stressful and full of vanities
but God uses that time to draw us closer to Him and to ensure that we don’t
place our trust in the wrong things. No longer do we rely on the royal chefs to
bring our meals each day but now we rely on God’s provisions (Matthew 6:25-27).
Our Spiritual Testing
Grounds
Not only is the wilderness a season of dependency but it also prepares us for what God has called us to become. With David his time in the wilderness was not one of isolation or contemplation. Rather this season gave him the opportunity to experience many of the responsibilities he would face when he became king. He learned how to lead and manage and defend his people. Many of the lessons David needed to learn in how to be a good king came during this season where he lead his band of misfits and evaded the murderous rage of Saul.
The wilderness can then be seen as a microcosm or a testing ground for our divine callings where we can learn, grow and apply what God is calling us to be outside of the public eye. It also allows us the opportunity to fail without being discredited before we master our callings. Or we can be like the Apostle Paul who used his decade long post-Damascus wilderness to relearn the scriptures through the light of Christ.
The wilderness can then be seen as a microcosm or a testing ground for our divine callings where we can learn, grow and apply what God is calling us to be outside of the public eye.
I know that everyone wants to go from the poor shepherd
directly to being the king with nothing in-between. But it is in that in-between
time that our heart, mind and character are supposed to be prepared to be a
king after God’s own heart. Otherwise we run the risk of ending up like the
fallen and wicked kings of Judah and Israel.
Even I’ve had my own wilderness experiences I’ve had several seasons in my life where as I was trying to fulfill. my calling and become who God created me to be I suddenly found myself outside of the proverbial promised land and alone in the dark, barren wilderness. I can honestly say that while I was in those seasons of wilderness that I was less than pleased to be in them. I grumbled and complained like ancient Israelite who left Egypt and I would regularly question God’s goodness.
But eventually I got to the point where I recognized where I
was and what God was trying to do in those seasons and my perspective began to
change. I reached a point in the wilderness where I saw what God was trying to
do with my heart, character or motivations and began to allow Him to do his work.
I allowed this because I began to see how the things God was addressing in my
life would end up crippling my calling and would lead to others being affected
as well. Looking back at those seasons I still don’t enjoy the pain, discomfort
or struggles I endured but I to enjoy the place that I am in now because of it.
This whole concept of the wilderness can be compared to
breaking your leg. After the injury you can either go through frustration of
depending on a crutch and having to endure the pain of having the bone heal,
and even become stronger in some aspects. Or you can take the easy way out and avoid
all of that pain and discomfort by just cutting of your leg instead. I feel
that many believers prefer to cut off their broken legs than allow God to take
them through the wilderness. Then afterwards they go about brag about their
piety for enduring life without a leg to stand on when all God wanted to do was
to strengthen them and make them more grounded in Him.
Welcome to the Wilderness
Despite Saul’s murderous temper tantrums David was still in
his season of apprenticeship, he was one of the leaders of the army and was the
one bringing victories to Israel while Saul remained at home wallowing in his
misery. David was earning the love and respect of the people simply by being faithful
to the tasks set before him. He didn’t try to outmaneuver Saul politically but
simply did his duty for the people and the kingdom as God gave him the needed
support.
Even though Saul was trying to kill David, David did not
relent from doing what he knew he needed to do at that time. He didn’t refuse
to fight the Philistines or plot to kill Saul, however once the danger became
too great then and only then did he flee. But David did not flee to an enemy to
seek vengeance on Saul, no in that moment David fled to where the prophet
Samuel was staying. David fled to the only real place he could go to as an
anointed servant of God. He went to the place where other anointed people were,
the place where God was speaking so he could find shelter and insight into what
to do next.
Don’t fear the wilderness because that’s the place of activation.
This time of apprenticeship in the wilderness David the experience he needed to learn how to lead the people and it gave him a platform for the others to recognize themselves what God has placed upon him. The wilderness was not a demotion but a staircase to the next level of David’s life, but like a natural staircase it takes effort and intent to reach the top. Our hearts want an escalator to carry us to our dreams and promises but in reality God wants to walk hand in hand with us up those stairs so we always remain dependent on Him for our promotion and success. Don’t fear the wilderness because that’s the place of activation.
Psalm 55:6-7 “So I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I
would fly away and be at rest. Indeed, I would wander far off, And
remain in the wilderness.”
Your life is made up of a series of questions which have been answered by yourself and those around you. “Should I turn left or should I turn right?” “Do I work here or there?” “Can I see myself spending the rest of my life with this person?” “What is all of this really about?” Our journey of faith began with two questions, and at some point in our lives each one of us must answer two key and monumental questions.
“Glory to God,” this is something that most Christians have heard at one point, maybe in a song, or while someone was preaching or even while reading the Bible. But what does it mean, what is glory, what does it have to do with God and how to we give glory to Him?
