Pursuing the Promise (Part 2)

LOOKS LIKE A DEAD END

The pursuit of anything requires movement.  You may be 100% certain of the direction you should go, in order to possess/receive your promise, however until you actually choose to take steps in that direction you have nothing more than potential.  It’s like taking a treasure map, framing it and hanging it up over your mantle as though discovering where to go was in fact the treasure itself.  Great job in finding the map, but it means very little without the treasure that you seek or at least making the attempt to recover it.  God gave Joshua the “map” to entering the Promised Land, and he responded at once with movement. Joshua 3:1: 

Then Joshua rose early in the morning; and he and all the sons of Israel set out from Shittim and came to the Jordan, and they lodged there before they crossed.

Once we know God’s intentions, the next step is to move as far as we can in that direction.  It looks easy as we read Joshua’s story, but remember that Joshua did not have the benefit of moving everyone down to the Jordon while knowing the full story as we do.  He was stepping out in faith. At God’s command he positioned himself and the Israelites next to a river for which he had no means of crossing by himself, much less the ability to transport thousands of people across.  By faith he chose to believe God and stepped out in the direction which God had revealed. To pursue our promises we need to step out in faith and go as far as we can. Once there, we need to be willing to set up camp and wait on the Lord.

IDENTIFICATION PLEASE

As we see in Joshua 3:2-3, the next step is identifying His presence:

At the end of three days the officers went through the midst of the camp; and they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God with the Levitical priests carrying it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it.

The ark of the covenant was literally the manifest (obvious, evident, readily perceived) presence of God to the Israelites.  It may seem impossible to believe that anyone could miss the obvious presence of God, yet do not forget how easily God’s people were persuaded to settle for something less than His manifest presence when Moses took too long in coming down from the mountain (Exodus 32).  Our intentions in waiting on God may be pure, but most of us have the tendency to begin doubting when God takes longer than we think He should to move us into the promise. While waiting in and of itself is not a bad thing and provides much opportunity for growth it also leaves us vulnerable to Satan’s oldest line in the book, “Did God really say…?”  Doubt creeps in, and if left unchecked it may persuade us to continue on without God, attempting to fulfill His promises on our own (self-fulfilling prophecy). We may think that maybe we heard wrong, begin doubting His love for us, or any other number of scenarios. Yet if we’ve tested the word which He spoke to us before we set out then we need to continue moving forward.  Moving forward at this point requires looking and watching for His manifest presence, knowing that it will be obvious regardless of whether it falls in line with our personal expectations of good timing or not. And the better we come to know His presence, the less likely it will be that we will fall for counterfeits during the process of waiting. Those who handle money know this principle all too well.  The best defense against being fooled by counterfeits is to carefully study the real thing. If you know what the real thing looks and feels like, anything different will be obvious.

Waiting on God to move is not an easy thing, but even Jesus submitted himself to the same process.  John 5:19 states:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”

Jesus was dependent upon seeing the Father move before He did.  When we get to that place where we can go no further in pursuing His promises to us, we need to make time to pursue His presence all the more.  If we know His presence well, the waiting becomes much easier; for then we know that He cannot possibly move on without us noticing.