When you enter your land of overflow, Don’t Forget the Lord!
Have you ever been so tired of a season that you just want to forget everything and everybody that had anything to do with it? All the pain, suffering, confusion, feeling defeated, wanting to give up, all of it makes you just grateful it’s over when you get to the other side of it. I have definitely been there and find the name for that season is simply “the wilderness.”
Like the children of Israel, we face wilderness seasons in critical times of our lives that can feel like they are long, purposeless and defeating, but if we go through enough of them we find out they are actually meaningful and will reap a harvest if we don’t give up. When you find yourself in this kind of season there are principles we must learn from the children of Israel that will help us bear up and receive the finisher’s anointing to finish strong. (2 Corinthians 4:15-18, Galatians 6:9)
1 Corinthians 10 outlines characteristics that could possibly keep us in the wilderness (listed below) and it is important to identify "the why" so that we can successfully move to our next season.
Lusting after evil things v. 6
Being idolaters v. 7
Committing fornication and indulging in sexual immorality v. 8
Tempting Christ v.9
Murmuring and grumbling v. 10
All of these provoke God to jealousy. We should not give our hearts to anyone but God and we should desire things that are pleasing to Him.
What has become your god instead of Him? Who among you have given themselves over to these things? Sometimes it may not be us, but someone we are connected to.
Deuteronomy 10:12-16
12“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.
Jeremiah 32:40-41
I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.
When you respond to the fear of the Lord, the love of God and obedience that God puts in your heart, God will delight in you and will be pleased with you. Psalm 147:10-11 His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. His delight is not in how much will power we have in keeping his commandments, but His delight is in those who lean and depend on Him. If God had not sent Jesus to die for us and without God writing His Word on our hearts we would have the same fate as those who died in the wilderness.
As you go through your wilderness and as you are crossing over into the land of overflow, write down all that God has been doing in a season where it feels like lack and need. Remember how He provided supernaturally for you, how He invited you into the secret place to show you how much He loves you and how he showed you unmerited favor despite you turning from Him. Write it all out so you won’t forget! In Luke 17, only one leper out of 10 who were healed returned to say thank you and he wasn’t even a Jew. Practice thanksgiving before the blessing so when it comes you will really in your heart be thankful. God doesn’t owe us anything, but we owe Him our lives for how good He has been and how faithful He is to an unfaithful people. Read through Deuteronomy 8 and let it minister to you.
Deuteronomy 8
Remember the LORD Your God
1“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers. 2And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. 6So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
11“Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.
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