The Right Question

When we are baffled by what we see, it is not because Jesus isn’t giving us the answers we seek, it is because we are asking the wrong questions.

Too often I have focused on what the enemy was doing, rather than trying to understand what God was doing. Too often, my legs wanted to run forward, charging ahead in advance against the enemy, more so than my feet wanted to simply stand my ground as I waited upon God. In ancient Israel, the ark of God always went out ahead of the Israelites, and then they followed it and stood their ground in that place until the ark moved again. Sometimes they maintained the area with a sword, sometimes they maintained the area with a tent, either way, they stood their ground wherever God led them. Their focus was not on what their enemies were doing, but where the ark was moving and what God was doing (Joshua 3:3,4).

Therefore, our question in this day of darkness and confusion must not be based upon the movement of the enemy, because then we will be led by the enemy. We must focus our actions and understanding upon God Himself, upon His movement and thus be led by Him. So we ask the right question: “What does God want from us? What direction is God drawing us?” And that answer is simple. God wants us to believe in the One Whom He sent, as He draws us to the cross. That is what He wants from us and that is the direction the ark is drawing us. 

Listen to me beloved, what God wants us to understand is that regardless of what is happening today, regardless of what the enemy is doing, God’s desire and direction for us have not changed. Regardless of how we interpret Daniel or Revelation or what we believe about the great tribulation, and regardless of what we understand about the rapture or the Antichrist, God’s desire and direction for us remain the same. The ark has not moved, our encampment is at the foot of the cross and our gaze must remain upon our risen Lord. That is what God is doing, this is what He has always been doing and where He has always been working, despite all our brick making and brick laying and frantic building and religious tasking. And especially despite all the chaotic antics of the enemy.

In this day of gross darkness, for us to walk in the light as He is in the light, is to not focus upon the world or the things in this world, but to focus upon who you are in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, you are dead to this world, you are crucified with Him, the old you is gone, this world is passing away and this world is not your home, you are a stranger here, a sojourner and a vagabond (John 15:19, 17:16, 18:36; 2 Cor 5:17; Galatians 2:20; 1 Peter 2:11). It is here that the ark has led you and it is here that you are encamped, it is here that God is doing His work in you, and it is here that you must maintain your ground. This is your answer to the right question.

(1 Cor 7:31) …for this world in its present form is passing away.

(1 John 2:16,17) For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world. The world is passing away, along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God remains forever.

(John 6:29) Jesus replied, “The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.”

The Desert Question

The other day, someone posted a quote that said, “How wrong are you willing to be?”

I don’t recall who posted it or who said it, but my mind immediately thought of the desert experience that God calls many of His children to. I have found that there seem to be more people who say they want God to reveal truth to them, than those who are actually willing to pay the price of receiving it. For God’s truth to be received, we must be willing to let go of our own. There is no other way. Thus, when someone is faced with a call to the desert, there tends to be varying degrees of willingness vs. reluctance.

For some, it strikes terror into their heart. They fear being alone and they cast a wary eye upon what may be lost and stripped away. In many cases, this is because they don’t truly know the One they claim to know, even though He is their constant companion in the desert, they are inconsolable without human input and guidance. They are lost without their own knowledge and preferred understanding. That is because the desert exposes—it de-clothes us, it dehydrates us, it decreases us. It dwindles away our own substance and leaves only the substance of Christ. And for countless millions that means, for them, there will be little to no substance left at all. When God is ready to teach us to stand upon Him alone, with our own two feet, He uses the desert to expose our degree of trust in men, and in ourselves.

For others, the desert becomes so familiar that they never want to leave. They marvel at their inexplicable longing to be stripped-- to have the grave-clothes stripped away, the scales removed from their eyes-- the dirty rags of our own efforts and righteousness and reasoning to be removed by the hand of God Himself and to stand before Him with no fig leaf between us. To stand before Him and cry out, “If you leave me with nothing, You are enough.” For such as these, an affinity begins to grow for the desert, for the solitude, the quietness. Far away from human banter, far away from the false, futile and fickle—the desert becomes an oasis of tranquility. For all intents and purposes, those such as these would be content to stay in the desert until kingdom come.

In the desert, there are no lanes, no discernible directions. Just a vast nothingness, with the blinding light of the sun as your only point of reference-- the only direction one can perceive is upward. Some are driven mad with the thought of what they might lose, of what will be exposed that has remained hidden for so long, or of facing some unknown thing that has remained hidden that even they themselves were not aware of. They cannot bear the notion of seemingly pointless wandering, or of not accomplishing some measurable headway to a predetermined destination. Yet others, trust that what may seem like wandering is not wandering at all, but divine compelling. For them, even if their wandering is, in fact, wandering, they learn how to be content wandering with their Lord. With the heart of Esther they cry, “If I perish, I perish. Yet I perish holding the hand of my Lord.” No measurable headway needed, just His abiding presence teaching us that He alone is our all in all.

“How wrong are you willing to be?” That is the question that calls to us from the desert-- a place that none of us enter willingly, we are only driven there. Yet for some, they must also be driven out, and when called to emerge, they only do so leaning on their Beloved.

(Song of Solomon 8:5-7) Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? … For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unrelenting as Sheol. Its sparks are fiery flames, the fiercest blaze of all. Mighty waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love, his offer would be utterly scorned.

(John 3:19-21) And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever practices the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God.

(1 Cor 3:12-15) If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as if through the flames.

Season Of The Desert

I studied to show myself approved (2 Timothy 2:15), but now God has drawn me into a place to show me the value of all my learning in the light of knowing only Jesus Christ crucified and as Lord--just that, and that alone-- and I am struck dumb.

Not that I didn’t know Christ crucified and as Lord before. But my season of learning must undergo the purifying fire of His true presence, it must endure the fiery gaze of the cross, burning away what is vain and leaving what is eternally valuable. As His holy hands sift through my collective knowledge, my soul cries, “My God and Lord if You leave me with nothing, if all I have left to know is You crucified, that is enough.” Are you willing to let Him sift all the learning you have amassed and leave only what is eternal truth? Are you willing to endure the fiery gaze of the cross, leaving only what reflects the true vision of Christ? Are you willing to have your knowledge and understanding scrutinized by the wisdom of God and whittled down to nothing, if that is all you have left of eternal truth in all your “acquiring wisdom”? (Prov 4:7)

There is a season of learning and then there is a season of the desert. In the desert season, all that is not sourced by the Living Water of Jesus Christ shrivels up and dies, and is only fit for burning. We take all our learning into the desert with us, where knowledge is tried and flesh is tempted, and when we come out, the only thing left is what cannot be shaken. The only thing left is the true word of the Lord. Because the desert is where God and man wrestle through what is the bread of heaven versus what is the bread of man. It is the place where the chaff of human reason is winnowed away and the leaven of religious scaffolding is put to death. If all that is built of Christ in your life and understanding is founded upon human reason and religious scaffolding, you will be left with nothing.

Deep down inside, there are many who know this to be true, which is why they are not willing to enter the desert, since the desert costs you everything of yourself, so that the only thing left is Christ in you. Because there is nothing to hide behind in a desert. And there is no man to give you food or drink, except the Lord.

(Luke 3:2) … during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness…

(Luke 4:1,2) Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days He was tempted by the devil…

(Gal 1:15,16) But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not rush to consult with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to the apostles who came before me, but I went into Arabia…

(1 Cor 2:1-5) When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified…my message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on God’s power.