It Starts Small

It’s funny that I sang that old gospel song and really had no idea what it meant. Do you know how much my life followed the timeline of the Old Testament?

Egypt: I was lost, depraved and in bondage to the world. Jesus spoke my name and called me to receive Him.

Wandering: for the next 20 years in a desert. I understand this more today than I did at the time I realized there’s a pattern to our walk with God. As I’m in the middle of reading about God’s deliverance of his people and all the ilk of their wandering, I look back and chuckle. Oh so many times God was chasing after me, and how many times I’d turn away from Him. I lived in pride, selfishness and rebellion.

I was done wandering. I wanted to get to a place with God where he could work in me, through me, teach me…. I wanted to get to the Promised Land. I needed victory in my life so I could get to the other side of the Jordan. I was done with aimless circles, repeated cycles of dead ends. I walked but had no idea where I was going. How many times had God rescued me out of the grips of evil, and how many times I would forget his power and simply return like a dog that returns to its vomit.

As I looked over that list combined with the list of promises I learned, I prayed.

Father,

I don’t want an endless wandering anymore. I know you have a purpose for me. You’ve shown me through my own pain and suffering that a human condition exists and it’s that we all fall short. In the process, we pass on the domino effect from the garden of Eden. Father, I don’t want to be a pawn anymore. I don’t want to me a domino that causes others to fall. I don’t want to keep the same revolving wheel going. Father, I know and trust that there’s something you have for me, a great purpose. Help me to understand what it means to have freedom, liberty, and live in your victory. Father, lead me across the Jordan into a deeper unknown with you.

In Jesus Name I Pray,

Amen.

Pastor Adrian Rodgers preaches a amazing series on what it means to live in victory. I’m working on trying to get a links page together to share all these sermon series I listened to. I have an iPad and no computer so navigating off an iPad makes things a bit complicated!

To understand victory we have to look at the Israelites at the end of their wandering. We pick up the story in the book of Joshua. The people had just spent 40 years wandering in the desert. Moses had passed away and it was time to cross the Jordan and go into the Promised Land. Egypt had represented the domain of lost people. I lived in Egypt. I was ruled by the power I gave to evil. The owner of evil resides over the lost, just as Pharaoh held dominion over the Israelites. The desert represented children in Christ. Babies who had a very forgetful memory. Babies who represent the carnal Christian that never grows spiritually.

The children of Israel had just been given a great victory. There wasn’t a war or a battle. God had delivered the out of bondage. In Exodus, God says, like an Eagle I flew out on my wings out of bondage and slavery. They didn’t deliver themselves, God did. Just as God rescues us from death and gives us life through receiving Christ as our savior. It wasn’t too quick after they were set free they started to complain and grumble because they were hungry and thirsty.

How on earth did they forget the victory and the power behind the victory? A God that preforms mighty miracles, to include parting the sea and drowning the enemy….can’t feed or give water to these people? Sound like anyone you know?

It sounded like me. I had forgotten the great power of the victory God brought to my life. Jesus, paid my debt and built a bridge to reconcile me to my Father in Heaven, but I had become so ungrateful and very forgetful. The disciples experienced the same thing. Jesus fed the 5,000 and six hours later they were on a boat in the midst of a terrible storm. The baskets of extras were right there with them, but oh how they forgot the power of God.

Oh man, that was some hardcore truth I needed! I didn’t need victory, I already had it! Troubles had come and I quickly forgot the power of God almighty and kicked the door open for the sinister minister to take up residence in my life. I had a huge issue. I was wandering because I hadn’t grown up. I was still a child crying when I needed food and water. Not giving a care in the “peaceful” times. I had become a carnal Christian stuck in a desert, not living a life of victory or with joy.

I had failed to see that God had already given me the victory! I had not taken possession of that victory. In order to take possession I need to put the foot of faith upon the promises of God and claim it as mine. The Israelites quickly forgot the songs of praising and singing hallelujah. I kind of wonder if it was just a religious moment a spiritual high, but they couldn’t embrace the promise, so it was much easier to complain and grumble. They even wanted to return to Egypt at one point. Bondage was better than starving or dehydration, yet the power was there all along to ask and be given.

Disappointment and fear always had me returning back to my own self made prison. Each time God had rescued me from. The grips of evil, I had hope that it was the turning point. It was going to be a time of revival and that God was going to come down and make things right. But as time wore on, and there was no God present, I grew disappointed. Hopeless. Resentful. I returned to my old way of doing things.

I pondered the Israelites. They seemed so foolish and I knew they were because my own story was their story. If I was ever going to get out of the desert, I needed to possess what God had done for me. It was his victory that crushed evil then and now. His power to keep his promises was not dead or dulled. His love was not aloof.

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15

It was time to stop serving two master and declare whom I served. Did I serve a man or did I serve the Lord God almighty?