WILDERNESS - THE REAL PURPOSE

I’ve read a lot of articles about the wilderness and I keep going back and reading the accounts in the Old Testament of the chosen people of God as they wandered around in the "wilderness." There was a vast number of them. They only moved when the cloud moved and yet they broke camp and relocated 41 times in their wilderness experience. In actual distance, they never moved very far. And they really were traveling in circles. What was the purpose of it all?

You mean to tell me that God led those people around out there in the wilderness all those years and waited until a whole generation died off before allowing the remaining survivors to enter the Promised Land? Yep, that’s right. Well, how does that apply to our lives today?

Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days and - He had been led there by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of being tempted by the devil. What? You’ve got to be kidding! Jesus was the Son of God. He had all power over the devil. Why would God allow him to be tempted? Well, isn’t Jesus the Pattern Son we are to follow? If so, then wouldn’t He have to go through all of the same kinds of things we are going through - in order to show us the way out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land?

Are we talking literal death here that the children of Israel experienced in the wilderness? Yes, they literally had to die because the perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, had not yet been crucified for their sins. They were still living totally under the Law, the very letter of the Law, and death was still a very real enemy. They were a type and shadow for us to observe and examine closely. Their physical death is representative of the death to the self-life that we must come through today in order to become a habitation for God on this earth.

God is a spirit and He has chosen to use a physical body to accomplish His work in this earth realm. He wants to dwell in you and pour Himself through you. In order for our vessel to be a dwelling place God can fully utilize, we must die to our own self-focused desires and allow God to use us as He chooses. He desires to reproduce life through us - to impregnate others with the Promised Seed. Just as Jesus’ death made way for eternal life to come forth in us, He desires to make that same provision for others through us – as he reaches out to love His children through us – to heal their pain and damaged emotions. He wants all of the barriers removed between mankind and God – the source of all life.