Devoted: Dedicated to Christ (4)
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Devoted in the Wilderness
Devoted in the Wilderness
One of the hardest places to be fully devoted to Christ is in the wilderness in the space between one victory and the next step. It was hard to realize that at the end of every battle isn’t a new road. Sometimes, you finish a battle and you’re left to wonder for a while. For me this is where I am at.
A few weeks ago I helped Tim spread manure in his fields. Had to be done in the middle of the night as the ground was frozen. You can’t go during the day because you’ll tear up the fields. I hopped in his tractor loaded up liquid manure out of the pits and drove to the field. At 3 am in a tractor there isn’t much to do and your body is screaming “I’m supposed to be asleep.” So to stay awake I talked at God.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had someone talk at you, but there is a difference between talking to someone and talking at them. Anyway, I’m trying to figure this in between stuff out and I’m talking at God. I have the Christian radio station on because it’s 3 am and I’m tired. And apparently God got tired of being talked at. So He sent this sermon about being content in the wilderness. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted a new road. I wanted new direction. I wanted to know what’s next. So I listened to the 15 minute sermon. Which is about the same amount of time for me to run out of Manure in this 1000 gal manure tank. So I backed up to the pump. Jumping out of the tractor mummering to God I had to get into another tractor which was used to activate the pump and agitator in the manure holding tank. I jump in that tractor and on the radio is a song about finding God and contentment in the wilderness. That night was a very long night. Ultimately I know God will finish the work he started and I won’t be in the wilderness my entire life, unless I refuse to go in the new directions he may be sending me. But it got me thinking about the 3 c’s to watch out for.
Comfort, Combative, and Cunning.
Don’t get Comfortable.
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
As a Pastor I get asked a lot what does it look like to deny ones self. And this can come in many fashions or forms. When your wife is working in the kitchen and your comfortable in your lazy chair. Denying self could be to get out of the chair and help your wife.
When you get home from work and your tired, but the kids want to play. Putting that aside and playing. When you like your job and what you do, but God has other plans for you somewhere else. It may be quitting your job, moving across country and starting something else.
To deny ourself is to go against our basic desires for the known and comfortable and stepping out to take a chance.
Your comfort can cancel out God’s progress in your life. Moses went up the mountain in Deut. to get the tablets of stone. God fashioned the tablets and for 40 days Moses spent time with God while Israel got comfortable. They began to like their surroundings. Maybe they pitched tents, hung pictures, gathered food, gathered around the camp fire. They got comfortable.
But Comfort breeds sin. A stirring started. They wanted to a new God, a present God. Their comfort soon made them combative to the will of God.
2. Don’t get Combative
1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
I have found people don’t stay comfortable long. We were meant for more so we are always searching for more. I find the people who stay in comfort die quicker.
Retirement: Research that those who retire, sit on the couch or chair and don’t have much going on die a faster and often harder death. A person who sits for prolonged periods of time start to lose muscle mass and can start to struggle in doing normal every things. Like getting up. Eventually comfort paralyzes you. We were meant to move. But we have to be careful that we move in the direction God desires us to move. When we are in the wilderness there will be a struggle that issues. The struggle will say: Ok God, if you will not provide a way I will make my own.
Now we may never be bold enough to say those words exactly. Israel didn’t complain directly against God. They used Moses as an excuse, but their true complaint. The heart of the issue was God. The complaint was against staying when they wanted to move.
30 No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the Lord.
What the author is saying is that anyone who goes against God is a fool. If you are in a waiting pattern. Wait. God will command. But when it’s time to move you need to move.
Eventually after we figure out that out right combat doesn’t work we try
3. Don’t get Cunning
You can’t create your own way.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Satan tried to outwit God and look where that God him.
So what do we do
Be close
James 4:8 (ESV)
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Use this time to draw close to God often the journey you are about to take will take more from you than the journey were on. So new levels of faith, trust, and closesness with God will be needed.
2. Be attentive
3 Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.
3. Be obedient
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.