We get ahead by not looking back. Exodus 6:6-8 KJV; 1 Corinthians 10:1-11
GOD’S THREE “I WILLS” speak of three phases in the story of the people of Israel:
1. “I WILL BRING YOU OUT FROM UNDER” — Redemption
2. “I WILL TAKE YOU TO MYSELF FOR A PEOPLE” — Relationship
3. “I WILL BRING YOU INTO THE LAND” — Inheritance
• It’s as much God’s will to bring us into our inheritance as it was to bring us out of bondage. Where God has said “I will” don’t question if it is His will — just say “So be it!”
• The Wilderness of Self Will can be a short journey or one that takes years. Trust God if you wish to cross it quickly (Deut.1:2-3). Fear would pull us back into the past, but faith will draw us forward into the future.
• Each stage in the journey from bondage to freedom has its own Comfort Zone.
Stage 1. Freedom from bondage is a dream-come-true that can become a nightmare. (“Make more bricks? Moses is to blame for this!”) Their slavery was systematic, like that of a prison. Their lives were governed by the system. The decisions of life were made for them by their captors. Food was provided, and shelter. Now Moses was asking them to follow him outside all this, and, like long-term prisoners on release, they decided that life ‘inside’ wasn’t so bad after all. Slavery was a Comfort Zone in comparison to where Moses was leading them!
Stage 2. With bondage now behind them they want to go back. (“At least we had plenty of water and tasty food in Egypt!”) The Red Sea that God had used Moses to open and that had been a barrier to the pursuing Egyptians had now closed behind them, leaving them alone in a wilderness! Their sighs under slavery in Egypt became murmurings in the wilderness. Through unbelief they ‘killed time’ in the wilderness until time killed them through premature old age.
Stage 3. Into the Promised Land! But who would now be their Care Provider? They had been on wilderness welfare for forty years. (“Moses promised us Milk and honey, but now we’re told we’ll have to live off what we fight for. Waaa…I want my daily manna!”
THE THREE-FOLD WITNESS IN THE LIFE OF THE BELIEVER
I John 5:6-10: The Three Witnesses on earth (verse 7 is not in original MSS): the Water, the Blood and the Spirit.
Salvation through Blood Sacrifice brings us out of slavery to sin and Satan.
Separation through Water Baptism enables us to passing through into a new life of freedom. But freedom has challenges. We either pass through on the way to our inheritance in Christ, or we just pass time.
The leading of the Holy Spirit in life enables us to cross over from being passively dependent on God as Care Provider to having an active faith in God as the One who rewards faith in everyday life.
So, don’t settle for Redemption without Freedom, or Separation through Water Baptism without Inheritance. Don’t live just inside the land in someone else’s inheritance but extend your faith to enclose and possess your own inheritance! (There are levels of leadership within inheritances, of course, and you may be called not to lead but to support leadership.)
Move out of the Comfort Zones that exist in each phase of freedom until you possess all that God has promised you in Jesus Christ!
After all, that’s why your motor vehicle’s front windscreen is far larger than its rear-vision mirror.