Jesus set the highest standard of humility and called us to learn from Him. Sure, we can have all the successes and accomplishments in the world, but without humility, it’s akin to being that well-dressed individual with a not-so-pleasant fragrance! …
Pride creates divisions within marriages, families, churches, people groups, and even nations. As followers of the Lord, we are called to exemplify a distinct humble and compassionate form of humanity. …
The ministry of Christ may seem common knowledge to many, but its significance and transformative power is only revealed to those who seek Him and believe in Him!
The religious leaders who lived in nearby communities, missed the historic birth of Jesus, but the wise men came a long distance from the East seeking the King of the Jews and worshiped Him! Is it possible that we may miss His work on the earth too?
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Knowing the will of God sometimes seems difficult or complicated for we have many obstacles to hearing God’s voice and knowing His will. Our past experiences, the cultural pressures, and the voice of the enemy all try to take supremacy in our lives. However, God tells us that when we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him (See Jeremiah 29:13). Romans 12:1-2 gives us insight into knowing God’s will.
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In the last few devotionals, I shared about the life of Moses, Joseph, and Jesus and their wilderness experiences. In each of their lives, their wilderness journey had a different purpose.
In the case of Moses, the Lord had to break Moses’ pride and natural strength and to teach him to rely on Him fully. Moses experienced his own wilderness before he could lead the Israelites through their wilderness for forty years! He was being prepared to represent the Lord before Gods’ people, and he had to be shaped through humility, consistency, and perseverance in the wilderness.
As for Joseph’s life, although he was loved dearly by his natural father, Jacob’s love was not enough to fulfill God’s plan for his life! Joseph learned to lean into the Lord when he was all alone, and he had no earthly love to draw upon. It was during this time that God gave him more than a dream but gave him interpretation to others’ dreams that opened the door to his destiny!
When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. Luke 4:13-14
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4:15
Jesus did not go into the wilderness because he had any sins or weaknesses in His life. Instead, the fasting and the wilderness experience allowed Him to come out full of power for what he was going to experience for the next three years of His life! He was being prepared for what was coming ahead as He was going to suffer on the cross for the sins of the world! He was also tempted in the wilderness in order to identify with our frailty and to be fully qualified as the High priest to intercede on our behalf before the Father. He remained strong and courageous when all the powers of hell broke lose against Him. He resisted every temptation and allowed the Lord to do His perfect will through His life!
What is beautiful and amazing about the stories of Moses, Joseph, and Jesus is that they were all gracious and forgiving towards those who mistreated them and falsely accused them! The wilderness had taught them to give up their rights to their own plans and to have a resolve for God’s will! They were willing to be the vessel that God wanted them to be in order to be used for the benefit of others! In the case of Jesus, His forgiveness opened the door for the entire humanity to have a chance to be saved from hell and darkness! The Bible shows us that many of God’s people experienced wilderness in their lives, and the Lord used the wilderness for His own purpose and for the benefit of His people.
If we are truly honest with ourselves thriving in the wilderness is a tough process! Many yearn to change the world but struggle greatly to allow the flesh to fully die in the wilderness! Why is wilderness so distasteful to most of us? Because there is nothing there to keep us busy or distracted. It’s boring! It feels like it will never end. We can’t set goals or make any progress. We are not in control! We don’t know what to do with ourselves, and we get fidgety looking around to get our hands busy with something. Our main focus becomes how to get out of the wilderness!
The wilderness experience is supposed to shape us for God’s glory and purpose! However, it is also full of temptations! Hence, it requires our attention, courage, and patience to be able to successfully persevere through it until such a time that the Lord gets us out of it! We don’t know how the Lord is going to do it, but we know that He is faithful and He will do it in time as we cooperate with Him!
I shared in the last devotional that Moses’s haste and sin caused him to remain in the wilderness for decades! He became a shepherd for his father-in-law and was out of the public eye for forty years, but ultimately God had a plan for him to shepherd His people out of slavery. Can you imagine how Moses’ interactions with Pharaoh would have looked like if he had not dealt with his temper!? He could have jeopardized his own life as well as the lives of his Hebrew brothers and sisters because of his impatience and anger. The Lord tempered Moses’ temper, so when he went before Pharaoh, he was a calm man who only desired to represent the Lord! In addition, as a leader, Moses was going to be faced with many oppositions some of which came from his own family!
Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman. So they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?” And the Lord heard it. (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.) Numbers 12: 1-3
Miraim and Aaron both were anointed by God to work under the leadership of Moses. However, they began to criticize Moses for marrying an Ethiopian woman and felt as anointed as Moses! When we read further in Numbers chapter 12, two points stand out about Moses:
First, Moses did not defend himself before Miriam and Aaron. He had become a humble man, and his focus was to honor God. He had no need to explain, defend, or fight for his position. He did not use his authority as a leader to lash out at his brother and sister. Instead, he allowed God to fight his battle.
Second, Moses interceded for his sister when the Lord struck Miriam with leprosy. Moses had no ill will towards her or his brother for questioning his authority. Instead, he had a heart of love and compassion for them.
Many people hope for leadership positions in their lives, but they are overconfident about their abilities in times of pressure! Moses was a learned and skilled man, but it took forty years of wilderness for him to let go of his pride. He shepherded his father-in-law’s sheep for years before he was able to respond in humility to opposition. The truth is that this was just the beginning of many challenges and trials that Moses had to endure to lead the people of God!
Most of us like the call of God in our lives because it makes us feel significant and important in the Kingdom. However, we truly do not understand the weight of the call! Do we handle the criticism of our brothers and sisters as well as Moses did? Moses had to be processed and its fruit was patience with his family and with God’s people as they remained in the desert for forty years. Leadership requires humility, patience and compassion because God wants us to represent Him when we are leading.
Have you been in the wilderness for quite sometime? Has it been a humbling process for you? Does it feel like you are wasting good years being stuck in the desert? Praise God that nothing is wasted in the Lord’s hands! He knows what He is doing. Continue to surrender to God’s process even when it doesn’t make sense. Allow Him to remove the self-confidence that led you to the wilderness in the first place. He knows how to replace it with meekness and allow you to shine brightly in due season.
