The fact that most Christians are living in the wilderness with Moses rather than a land flowing with milk and honey, and enjoying all of God’s promises with Joshua has become a cliche, but that does not stop it being true. Most Christians are thankfully not in a literal wilderness walking around in circles getting sand in their sandals, but most Christians are struggling with things they should not be struggling with.
Christians struggling with chronic illnesses and pain, Christians in debt, Christians still committing the same sins and the same bad attitudes they had a decade ago! These things are Christians in the wilderness, they are Christians who are not living like God is big. They have lost their dreams, lost their goals, and lost any heart’s desire for more. They have limited their lives by limiting God and not living like God is big. For these Christians, walking in health, walking in wealth, walking in peace, walking holy – it seems as likely as the walls of Jericho just suddenly falling down. And because they have no vision or desire for it, they never move towards their promises and their dreams and their destiny!
The children of Israel were slaves who had been freed from slavery but still thinks like slaves. Sadly, too many Christians – although totally liberated from slavery by Jesus, our Jubilee, live more like slaves than children in the promised land. Getting born again and getting a transformed and righteous spirit is not enough to walk in God’s best, you have to change the way you think, renew your mind as Paul says, prosper your soul as John says, save your soul as James says, so that you can live like God is big, live in God’s best, live in your dreams, stop limiting God and walk in victory, health, abundance, peace, holiness and wisdom! It is more than possible – but it involves more than the new birth.
The new birth sets you free from slavery to satan, this world and the flesh, but it is renewing your mind to dream big dreams, to hold immense images that gives us access to our land of promises. But like the Israelites, if we do not work on our thinking, if we never reach a place where we actually believe God can get us into the land of promises, then we will never end up there!
I read Don’t Limit God every month, and the book, by Andrew Wommack, is based on Psalm 78.41, and it says “Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel”. What they did in the wilderness was refuse to believe that the promise was for them. They did not believe that God could bring them into their land of promises. They did not believe in God, not really. They limited God and thought He was too small to get them where they wanted to be, so they just kept walking around the wilderness and never got to their land of promises!
Now make sure you do not read over this and not let it sink in. They limited God. That meant they had the power to limit God’s power. They could turn off the tap of God’s power through the way they thought. Now, you are exactly the same. You can turn off the tap of God’s power by the way you think! You need to think great, big thoughts, especially when it comes to God’s love and God’s power and God’s ability to get you where you need to be!
To tempt God means to fail to believe what He says. To not accept His Word. That’s amazing that anyone would do that, especially after seeing the Red Sea split in two and walking right through it, especially after having manna every day, especially after watching water come from a rock, especially after their clothes and shoes did not wear out. I need new knee wraps for the gym, I noticed this morning the straps were nearly worn out. Imagine nothing wearing out for forty years! They saw all these miracles but did not believe God was capable of getting them into their promised land. Many Christians believe God can help them in their pit and in their wilderness and in their mess – but they genuinely do not believe that God can get them out of their pit or desert and into the land of promises. They believe God can help them make the house payments, but not that God can totally get them out of debt. They believe that God can help them manage their pain, but not that God can eradicate their pain. Churches believe God can pay their rent, but not find them a brand new building to worship in. Why? Because their thinking doesn’t go there, their imagination doesn’t go their, so they presume God is lying rather than change the way they think.
Many Christians have a God who they believe can provide food every day – not good food, not amazing food, but enough – just enough. But a God who can empower you to knock down city walls, slaughter giants, take land, change geography, get you houses, get you harvests you did not sow for – they do not believe that, so they limit God, so all these things never come close to them. Don’t be that person. Don’t glibly say that you believe God can do anything, if those dreams of living in the land of His promises, living in abundance, living with no debt, having more than one house, having a car paid in full, having complete health – no need to wear glasses or use a stick – are not flowing through your imagination daily. Because if the images are not in your mind, you are limiting God because you are not truly believing He can and will do it.
So many Christians are living at this level and it breaks my heart. They live their whole lives and never enter into their land of promises until they get to Heaven. I’m really glad they got to Heaven, but what a wasted potential, living their entire life on planet Earth going through trouble you never have to go through, in mental anguish you never needed to have, fighting battles you never needed to fight!
The Spirit of the Lord anointed Jesus so you could be free from captivity, healed, unoppressed, unoffended, rich and happy! That is the truth and the truth will set you free – if you know it. But we actually sadly have charismatic churches and evangelical churches telling Christians we are supposed to go to the wilderness, supposed to have wilderness experiences, supposed to spend time in the valley. It’s not Christianity that kind of thinking, it’s voodoo, it’s spooky, and it absolutely is not the life Jesus came to bring us. This is a big question because there is so much bad teaching about, but let me make this very clear: God has never organized for someone to go through a wilderness to teach them something or train them or humiliate them. God never planned for the children of Israel to wander around in the desert for 40 years either – remember they limited God. It’s on them, and your wilderness experiences are not a badge of honour, they are proof that your thinking is so small, you are limiting God. Stop blaming God for your wilderness experiences, and definitely stop thanking God for them, and start renewing your mind, start developing a prosperous soul, and get into your land of promises.
The Bible is so clear on this fact. The Scripture never once says: They could not enter in to the promised land because God had planned a wilderness experience for them so they could grow and develop and become humble. No, Hebrews 3.19 says they could not enter in (to the promised land) because of their unbelief.
It was unbelief that gave the Israelites a wilderness experience, and it is unbelief that gives people them today. So, deal with your unbelief, stop limited God and join us in the promised land.
This is such a serious issue, that the Bible actually uses the word “fear” when it comes to how we should think:
Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it (Hebrews 4.1)
In the next few weeks, I will blog on how to change the way you think, but the first step to renew your mind is to realize your thinking is not where it should be on this issue. I want everyone reading this to have a holy, godly, reverent fear. There is a promise given to all of us that we will walk in victory, overcome our enemies, be healthy, be rich, be in abundance, have peace of mind, have a ministry, have a place in the body of Christ, be holy and pure, kind, helpful – there is a land of promises for all of us. Do not be casual about this, let a reverence hit you – you can limit God, you can miss your time, you can come short of your destiny.
The word “come short” in the Greek is hystereo, and it means that when there is a race, it’s actually more than coming last, it’s failing to even complete the course and cross the finish line. It means to lack what you need to win and is normally translated lack in the New Testament, it means to fail to complete a goal. Jesus tells the rich young ruler he only lacks one thing (Mark 10.21), which is the same word. It also is used by Luke to describe the poverty of the prodigal son (Luke 15.14). Jesus told His disciples that when they went on mission trips for him they lacked nothing – Jesus gave them everything they needed to complete their race.
You have everything you need to complete your race and walk in the light of everyone of God’s promises, to live pure, to have a glorious prayer life, to have a glorious life, to own your own home, to own your own car, to walk in freedom and peace and love. To be part of a church full of the Word, full of the Spirit, full of the nations and filled with love. To do everything God has designed and crafted you to do! So, please, please, please, have some fear about this. Take it very seriously. Do what you have to do, buy the books you need, be in church this week, go to a better church with more Word in it, get our app at www.tree.church/app and listen to what I have been teaching on this subject, read the same book over one hundred times like I have, get up an hour early and pray in tongues… whatever it takes don’t put this off.
Selah.
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