Giants!

(Deuteronomy 4:1) “Take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.”

I would say I am amazed, but that would not be accurate, nevertheless I must confess that it is rather foolish to travel to the river Jordan and be offered the Promised Land and then to somehow be side-tracked and to take our eyes off the original hope, which was a land flowing with milk and honey. And for us now living with today’s challenges and yet with so many promises available to all of God’s children. In fact it is no different in principle, this verse is still very appropriate in our everyday lives.

God our heavenly Father is for His children and not against them. Just as He made a promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even when the children of Israel purposefully went out of their way to make and worship a golden calf, God thought about destroying them but would not! He had made a commitment to their faithful forefathers and Moses intercedes on their behalf saving them from certain destruction. In like manner with far more power and authority the Lord Jesus now intercedes for us. He is the ultimate sacrifice and it is now over and done with, no more death in that sense ever needed ever again, “it is finished!”

So here we stand in the righteousness of Christ and His accomplishments with the roughness of the sand under our feet and the cool refreshing water from the river Jordan running between our toes. We are now faced with a challenge, and I pray we welcome it with both arms. As I know I am slow to accept what seems to be a rather daunting challenge; in fact it has been promise so it is no longer intimidating, but when we reason with human intellect it seem impossible, as it is if we operate with the carnal mind, we must put on the mind of Christ! I get rather frustrated when I make statements like these, they are sound and biblically based, and we all need to learn to apply sound doctrine to our lives, it is a must! But I tend to fall privy to exactly the opposite soon after I have made the point. Why? I do not take seriously what the Word teachers me; if I did then I would resist the flesh and its folly. Having said that and after walking in a circle I find myself back at the water’s edge, what are we all now to do, we move forward, we believe God and we press on. What if our live are full on the same repeated mistakes? Well then I suppose we are all alike and we must press on; “for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.” (Proverbs 24:16) – We must wipe the dirt from our knees, even if we see blood and remember we will not be stopped by the giants of life. The Lord Jesus has overcome and when we realise that and take or eyes off our own circumstances and fix our gaze upon Him, then we will enter into His rest, we will take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of our fathers, is giving us.

What is on offer for every child of God, do not say I suffer from this illness or I have this character flaw. For when we reason like this we relinquish power to our carnal reasoning and we undermine the work of the cross. We all now have equal opportunity to possess the Promised Land. How can I make such a brash statement? It is obvious; it is not about us and our giants but rather about the Lord victory over all of life’s monster hurdles. We must put on the mind of Christ, we must walk by faith! This now is what has been promised; “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

We have a simple test we can appropriate to our lives and it has nothing to do with wealth and prosperity. Is my life full of these fruits or do the giants of life keep me from the produce? I know where I am falling short, do you? Nevertheless the solution is the same for all as we now stand of the river edge and we look across towards the Promised Land, what do we see a land flowing with milk and honey or do we see so many giants that we are afraid to cross over? All may come and partake from the fruits of the Spirit, it has been promised and our great Saviour has cleared the way, only believe and find rest in Him.

Signing off

Tyrone