The Wilderness Season

     What is the wilderness season of a Christian? When a Christian goes through a wilderness season within their lifetime it will be a time of change for him. It maybe a time of hardship and sadness. It is a time of mental confusion and uncertainty. We will not be able to clearly see to where we must go to find our way out.  It will be a time when our trust and faith in God will be tested. We are in this spiritual and emotional state of mind to learn to trust in God with our whole mind and soul. We will learn to have total faith in God to lead us through the wilderness. In this wilderness, God is preparing us to what we need to be, so to go further in our worship of him. In the the wilderness, Satan will be there to test us and try to break our trust and our faith in God. In the wilderness we will come to know more of ourselves and our relationship to God.
     How do you enter into the wilderness season? There could be many different reasons to how you enter the wilderness season. Your problems that you had might have led you into a spiritual and emotional wilderness. Your problems could have been spiritual, financial, poor health and even a lost of someone that you loved. It could of been when a certain circumstance happened in your life and you felt like that you were lost and alone. You needed help and guidance to find your way out. You may have felt broken and shattered. You felt that you needed someone to put you back together again. The wilderness is about being broken down and being built back up again by the spirit of God.
     Another way you may have enter the wilderness, when you become ready to make a change in your life. You may have become so tired of the way you were living your life. You eventually start to feel that you are lost and alone in a wilderness that you do not know how to leave. At this point in your life, you are willing to let God take control and lead you through the wilderness so to teach you and train you. In this hardship he will guide you and remake you with his words. He will change you according to his will. He will show you that to go further into your worship of him, you must be more dependent upon him. God will train you to become someone with a strong faith and a strong determination to serve him as he wants you to.
   Even though Jesus went into a physical wilderness rather than a spiritual and emotional one, we can still learn from his example how he resisted the devil and did not break his reliance on God. Matthew 4:1-4 "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he answered, "It is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Jesus had complete trust in God that he would provide what he needed. Even though Jesus was hungry, he did not break his trust in God by doing what the devil wanted.
     The Israelites wander a wilderness for forty years as punishment from God. The people of Israel constantly complained about God to Moses and Aaron even after being delivered out of Egypt and seeing first hand all the miracles that God had done. Numbers 14:2-3 "Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt." Numbers 14:11 "And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? The Lord went on to say in Numbers 14:22-23 that none of the men who saw the signs that he did in Egypt and in the wilderness shall see the land that he swore to give to their fathers.
     In the wilderness, the LORD did not abandon the people of Israel but he led them to where they were to go. He was also testing, teaching and training them to be humble and obedient. He showed them that he could be trusted and they could depend upon him. Deuteronomy 8:2-5 "And 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. And 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. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you." When it was time, the LORD lead the Israelites out of the wilderness and he rewarded them the land that he swore to give to their fathers.
     In our own wilderness season the LORD will lead us. Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." In our hardships and troubles he will be there helping us through them. In our wilderness, he we lead us out of it when it is time. Meaning when we learn what we need to learn. He will test you to know what is in your heart. He will humble you so that you will learn to be more dependent upon him. Moses said that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. The LORD loves us and disciplines us so that we will be doing what we need to be doing so to please him as his loving children. 
     When it is time for us to leave the wilderness, we to will be just like the Israelites tested, humbled and trained by God to be obedient sons and daughters. We will be changed from what we were. Our minds will be clear to the direction that we must go. We will be ready to serve and to do the will of God. In time we to will be rewarded when the Son of God returns and welcomes us into his kingdom.

2 Corinthians 4:8-10 "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies."      
      

Prepare Your Heart

     Prepare your heart to what matters most to God. In the days of Noah before the flood, God saw in Noah that he had a heart of righteousness. Genesis 6:9 "These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God." God chose Noah to make the ark and to live through the flood not because he had the most wealth, knowledge, strength or power upon the Earth. Noah was saved because he was a righteous man, who walked with him. God knows the condition of our hearts. 1 Samuel 16:7 "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." Noah's heart contained what mattered most to God. It was filled with righteousness and obedience to God. Whatever that Noah needed to do to build the ark, he just needed to be himself and God would provide the rest through his grace.
     Noah is a good example to how our own heart condition should be as we draw near to the last days of the coming of the Lord. We want God to see us like he saw Noah. We want him to see us also to be righteous and obedient, someone who is worthy to be saved. We definitely do not want to be someone that will be rejected by the Lord. Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
     Sometimes people will honestly believe what they are doing is right however they may have been lacking a pure heart according to God. Proverbs 21:2 "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart." King David told his son Solomon that he must serve the LORD with his whole heart. 1 Chronicles 28:9 "And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever."
     We are what our hearts reflect. Proverbs 27:19 "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man." The apostle Luke tells us something similar that we act and speak according to the condition of our heart in Luke 6:46 "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure of his heart produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." The apostle Paul told us what we should be doing if we have a good heart in 2 Timothy 2:23 "So flee your youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the lord from a pure heart." What is a pure heart? A heart that is clean and blameless. It has no deceit and hypocrisy. It has the desire to follow in the ways of the Lord so to be sanctified by Jesus's sacrifice.
     Prepare your heart so to be pleasing to the Lord. Let us be like Noah who is someone that God sees as righteous and blameless. He was someone that out of all the people of the world that was not corrupt or evil. His heart was blameless and full of righteousness. God could trust him for he was obedient to his words. We should foremost want to become like Jesus, God's only begotten son. He die for us to set us free from our sins and gave us eternal life in his kingdom. Our heart should be like his full of kindness, compassion and love. God just like he did in Noah's days is bringing our world full of corruption and violence to an end. He is bringing his kingdom to our world and wanting the believers of his son Jesus Christ to be apart of it. We should be preparing our heart so to be acceptable to God and so that God seeing our heart's condition will want us to be apart of his glorious kingdom.   

Sufficient Grace

     In 2 Corinthians 12:7, the apostle Paul said that a thorn was given to him in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass him from becoming conceited. In verses 8-10 he said, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
     God told the apostle Paul that, "My grace is sufficient for you." The grace from God is his undeserved favor. God's grace is his gift to us and we did nothing to earn it. Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your owned doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." Our salvation was a gift from God. God's grace gave to us what we could not give to ourselves. God allowed the apostle Paul to have a thorn in his flesh so to keep him humble and not to become puffed up with pride. However God by his grace, supplied him the sufficient power and strength that Paul needed to endure his troubles and accomplish the work that needed to be done.
     God has made his grace to be sufficient for us. 2 Corinthians 9:8 "And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work." Hebrew 4:16 "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." God's grace is sufficient for every hardship that we may face. God's power is greater than any problem that we may encounter. When the apostle Paul was weak he could feel the Holy Spirit of God upon him, making him feel confident and strong.
     When I feel weak and I do not have the energy to do what I need to do. I continue on in life with my faith in God. I pray for his help and the strength to get through my day. In those times, I just surrender my life over to God so he can help me. By his grace, I did receive the energy that I needed to get through my day. I accomplish the tasks that I needed to do. I look back at the end of my day and ask myself, how did I do that? The answer was only through God's grace. God's grace was sufficient, it was more than enough to get me through my day.
     The apostle Paul recognized, what the power of God's grace could do. 1 Corinthians 15:10 "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." The apostle Paul told us that God's grace made him into the man that he is now. He worked hard as God's disciple but he said he could not have done this without God supporting him with his grace. He realized in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 that when he was weak, he could feel the power of Christ resting upon him, making him feel strong. His troubles and hardship that he had to go through was also a witness to others of God's strength, power and grace that was upon him. He said, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions, and calamities for he knew that God was with him, supplying him with everything that he needed through his grace. If someone were to asked him, How did you endure all these things? He would say by the grace of God.