Many of God’s chosen go through the wilderness….. It is the way of God, even His Son was put in hardship to prove Him….. So why do we expect any other way of life if we have chosen to pick up our cross and be with our Lord. Our cross is to make sure the old man or our carnal thinking, ways are dead….. God has created the deserts for the sole purpose of drawing out the new creation in Christ by the Holy Spirit in us.
The list of God’s chosen which lived some part of their lives in the desert is many….. This is where we know God alone. We learn He supplies our all. He is our Answer to all things that pertain to life and godliness and death…..This place of the desert is where we see God alone can be our all. We fall before Him in the realization that others have been put in preeminence where He alone deserves. He is worthy to be our all.
The wilderness is a wilderness but it is the greatest spot. It is You and me alone. Many people had adversities who have never wavered were asked how was it….. Well, it was hard but then they smile as they remembered the closeness of the Lord during their time apart. They say, but God be the glory, how I made it through.
The friendship and relationship with our God that blooms in the desert is one that cannot be replaced or analyzed…. It is God. He never stops short on proving His greatness in the midst of our weakness.
No matter how high or far or down we go, we can not be separated from God. His love engulfs us. His love carries us. His love hears our faintest cry for help. His love reaches down….. He never stops for a moment to reason …. He just keeps lifting the humble. He places us in place of princes……… His love never fails.
Jesus walked the earth and gave great acclamation to John the Baptist, Luke 7. John the Baptist spent his days in the deserts until the day the Lord manifested him to Israel, ( Luke 2).
Moses spent his forty years in the wilderness before presenting himself from the Lord bringing the law to Israel…….. King David spent many wilderness days running from the hate of Saul…….Then King David was brought out by God to rule and reign His people. Even the Son of God spent 40 days in the wilderness to be proven…….
I wonder if the three years for the disciples with the Lord was more being in a wilderness…. They were hunted for the companionship of the Lord. They spent most of their days in bewilderment because of the ways of Jesus of Nazareth were so out of their paradigm. Can we gather a conclusion which shows they were perplexed from the companionship of the Lord? Their unrenewed mind sent them in a tizzy when the Lord moved by the Spirit of God.
Then we know Paul, formerly Saul, whose name was changed…… spent many years in the desert with the Spirit of God. Then Paul was put before the people by God to be a witness of the testimony of the Son of God, Christ Jesus, the King and the Lamb of God. Paul brought to us so much from the thoughts of our God. He put before us the banquet that the Godhead planned when the Lord took His seat at the right hand of the Almighty and sent the Promise or the Seal of the Spirit of God to reside within us.
As we live in the wilderness, we learn to know the Lord, closer than our own breath…. We know the Lord…..We are transformed into His thought, His ways and His heart.
We die to ourselves in the wilderness and live in this new world of His kingdom which was hidden from our sight. In the wilderness, the Kingdom of God becomes more a reality than this world’s kingdom……It is a terrible time and a wonderful time.
Remember our Lord is terribly wonderful and wonderfully terrible.
Of all our hardships as going to school- law or medical…… This may be an assumption, if I am wrong, forgive me…..For I have spoken to doctors:…… their training was a bear to go through….. They always remember the hardest professor or doctor they trained under that only expected excellence. They have said the professor or doctor brought out the best in them….. It was a bear to go through but well worth the outcome now.
So we must not expect any different dealing with the Spirit of the Living God. The wilderness is the Holy Spirit’s school. We forget all our past and start to live in eternity. He will instruct. He guides. He burns away the chaff. We learn to live on the Wheat. Preparing to give the Wheat. We learn to live on the word of God as our only support of life. All remains is a concentrated focus and strong connection to the Uncreated One. We then know we are found in Him and Him alone…. No righteousness left in our selves…In truth, our righteousness is as filthy rags….. In the wilderness, we learn Truth.
The seal of the Living God by His Spirit is branded within our hearts, our will and our minds…..We die to the world and the world has died to us in this experience of the wilderness….. His work is mighty in pulling down every stronghold that rises up against the knowledge of God…….in us…..
So if we are going through the wilderness or as some has spoken of the dark night of the soul…. Rejoice….. God has chosen you to be His witness of His love, His light and His grace found in the Lord Jesus Christ and you!
The place is great where we learn to be still and know I AM God. What an opportunity our Lord gives us when we are brought to a place before Him to watch. What a fantastic Door is our Lord when we can enter in His kingdom and behold His majesty and beauty. How wonderful when we forget ourselves because He Is HERE. When Jesus Christ becomes our all……
When in time, something catches our attention…… We learn then to immediately turn to Him and be still, wait for His Word to guide us. No matter what false pressure comes our way to make us move without His Word….. Stand, and above all stand in the promises of our Lord…..The stand is not to wait for His promises but to stand in them no matter what blows our way, we stand in Him. May this Patience of Jesus Christ be rooted and established in us. We learn all this with our Beloved in the desert.
The Lord’s kingdom is here, it is within us. We may not see with our natural eyes, but we walk by faith. As we stand in His presence in His faithfulness. In His place that He has put us in…. We do not move. We do not bend or panic….. We stand. We know the Lord hears us and answers us….. We keep praying to loose heaven in our midst and bind the forces of evil…..
So we stand and allow the Lord to perfect our patience….. For perfect love has not torment or fear….. His love never fails….. We must be proven in this knowledge so it becomes an experience. The experiences of our God grows our Testimony of Him. His faithfulness……. His greatness………….. His purpose…….. His thoughts……… His heart…….. within us…… to be poured forth as a fragrance.
Remember the taunts our Savior received when He was dying on the cross. His greatness was closed off to much of humanity….. Sadness to say, is it today also? His temptation in the desert or wilderness and the in the garden…. was closed off to much of the world except a few chosen….. Thus they reported on His greatness through His suffering to us today in the Word.
Most of the transformations that happen in the wilderness of our lives in God are hidden from humanity. They are honeymoon time with the Spirit of the Lord. He makes us into one with Him……No matter how long it takes in our time. He is determined to be faithful to Himself within us…. So when we come out of our wilderness, we are the perfected beauty of our Lord’s love…. His image on His bride.
If you notice, in the Word…. The wilderness or desert experiences of His chosen were a couple of sentences. The Word does not describe what they did in their wilderness times, except with Paul. Paul is the Testimony we have our Lord’s intention during this time of grace……in Galatians 1:9-17:
As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you then what you have received, let him be accursed.
For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Jesus Christ.
But I make know to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
For I neither received it from, man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.
And I advanced in Judaism beyond my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
As we walk through the wilderness with our God. He strips us of the ungodly mindsets we have as well as the traditions of men towards God. Traditions towards God make the power of His word to no effect as written. The Lord spoke in Matthew 15:8, These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
We must bow and submit to His authority even when we think what we do is right….. But right in following traditions may not be worshiping our God by Spirit and Truth.
He wants our heart not our empty words….. He knows our hearts before we open our mouths….. But His love never fails us, let Him do His work in us so our love never fails Him…..
He wants us to live from the newness of the creation which He has wrought in us…. Beloved, this is the plan of our Godhead from the foundation of the world. We must know we cannot love God without Him in us…..We do not have love for Him or others as He desires without Him in us and we in Him…..When we come to realize how wretched our state is without our Savior….. then, behold, the glory of the Lord will come and rest upon us and within….. The humble the Lord delights to raise up. We are reborn with the incorruptible Seed — the Seed that produces love that never fails…..if we hold true to the high calling of God.
We thank God that Paul lived from a place of boldness in the Lord. He lived from the place of the revelation or illumination that he received from the Spirit of God. The Word mentions that Paul did not confer with men on this illumination…. He allowed God to cement in his spirit and soul the will of God for this age…The Holy Spirit was determined the purpose of God would not be lost in Paul by the prejudice of men.
The prejudice of men stoned the first martyr, Stephen. All Stephen did was speak the Truth…..hmmmm, who else was killed for speaking the Truth? Yes, the Son of the Living God, who came to bring life and free people from the dead traditions. The traditions that spoke to do the same thing over and over again did nothing for the state of our heart…. dead. As written the just shall live by faith. We are rewarded by our Heavenly Father as we believe in the One He sent….. not traditions of men. Now is the time announced by our Lord Jesus Christ in John 4:23…..The Father is seeking those who will worship in Spirit and in Truth.
Our time in the wilderness, we learn how to worship our God. We learn how to lean on our God. We see how He is revealing His Son in us so we may obey and grow into mature sons and daughters of God who worship in Spirit and by the Word- the Truth.
So do not negate yourself or others if they disappear a time with our Lord. Let them have their honeymoon….. as others become one with their and our Lord. Do not disturb sign is upon their door for a reason.
Our God’s Spirit is making His face known and written upon their heart…. Leave them alone. Let us start praying for our own experience with the Lord…….Come and awaken to Him and His righteousness in His perfected love….. All God be the glory if we would all learn in all fullness His love never fails…… Let us bow and allow His Spirit to drive us into the wilderness where we can be alone with our Beloved God. Has He not called and chosen us?
Let us take and devour the banquet in the Lord that our God has provided with gusto! Let us be so consumed with our place before the Lord that we quit being busy with others’ business….. God knows what He is doing with His children, let’s us let Him have His way. Let us look and be consumed with our own place in the Lord today.
Let this Word of our Lord not be about us because we are busy bodies with everything but our own soul with Him…...All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people, Romans 10:21.
Let us rather be found answering His sweet call:
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her.
And it shall be, in that day, says the Lord, that you will call Me My Husband, and no longer call Me My Master, for I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, and they shall be remembered by their name no more.
I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.
Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; then I will say to those who were not My people, you are My people! And they shall say, You are my God! ( Hosea 2:14,16,17,19-23.)
Children, My children, I AM is before each one of you. I Am is aware of you close or you from afar. Alas, this is your choice of where you are near Me or from afar. I AM has made the Way to Me…. Do not act according to Cain. I AM to you as to any other child. As you draw near to Me, I AM will draw close to you.
The Door needs to be opened for anyone to enter in, but each one has to go to the door and turn the key to open….. You have been told of the Way, the Truth and Life…. through My Beloved Son….. Yet, you do not come. Why are you with an evil eye towards those who come?
Ah, children, you are mistaken for all is yours in Jesus Christ…. Just come and know I AM. I AM has called you to be with Me.
Pride moves the key away from the Door of your freedom from death and sin and I AM. I AM’s love is forever towards you. I AM has called you with an everlasting love.
The key of Life is lost to many because of the eyes that lie, thoughts of reason and motives of pride. Remember the Truth, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
The banquet is set before you. I Am calls all to come. No one stops anyone. Each one’s own heart is found with the fault of not entering in.
You would call one foolish if he was found dying of thirst, yet, there was a well of never ending water near with a pail. Alas, he never drank from the well. He refused the very sustenance that would give him life…… Where do you stand, children?
Salvation is from the Lord……. My arms are ever opened to save you from your past, your present, your future….. Find yourself in I AM. I AM releases you from your sinful heart- your heart is written with My Words. I AM releases you from yourselves- In I AM is your new creation…… I AM releases you from your cares- I AM is enemy to your enemies. I AM releases you from poverty of spirit- in I AM- your spirit is made anew. I AM is your Hiding Place. I AM releases you from the world’s corruption…. In I AM is found your purity and holiness….. For I AM holy and I AM calls you to be also. I AM hears you when you cry…… I AM is there with you yesterday, today and forever. My eye is ever upon you……… Know My Love.
The key to heaven is before you…… Come and call to I AM. Do not be found in your way which leads to death. Come and be found in MY WAY.
Do not be mistaken as I AM’s offer of Salvation is to keep you from the lake of fire. I AM greater in My purpose. I AM call’s you to all new. Do not be mistaken that a tiny bit from the Scriptures will help you pass by the fires. You must partake of all of I AM.
A father has prepared a feast for his children. The children come. They see all the requirement of their own engagement in this prepared feast. They turn to leave, yet they take a slice of bread but leave the best part of the banquet to others.
They do not want to spend the time they have with their father. They turn to their own ways of business and lose their life.
Their father says these are not my children, I do not know them. The ones who have come and have eaten are my delight. These ones have pleased me by leaving no good thing unopened or left on my table and reside with me. They have sat and listened. They have desired to be with me where I am. They left their all for me. These are my children.
Be wise, children. Meditate on the way of life and the ways that lead to death. Choose life, children. I AM waiting for you…..There is more to partake in I AM….. Keep seeking and keep knocking for you will be satisfied. Come, there are many things that are prepared for those who love I AM….Do you love I AM? Alas, My love for you will never cease.
I AM’s love for you is everlasting…… Come…. to Me…..
