Taking New Territories

When God promised Abraham a land flowing with milk and honey, it did not mean he nor his descendants were going to occupy it without struggle and battles. God's promises are yea and amen.They are true and faithful. For He is not a man to lie, nor the son of man to repent of what He has promised. 

 2 Corinthians 1:20 For all of God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding "Yes!" And through Christ, our "Amen" (which means "Yes") ascends to God for his glory. 

Numbers 23:19 God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

More often than not, we only see the promise, but refuse to embrace the battles we may be engaged in on our way to receiving the promise. Sometimes we linger around God's promises but refuse to take steps of faith to possess the actual promise. God said through Moses to His children - The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates.  See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land the Lord swore he would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—and to their descendants after them.” Deuteronomy 1:6-8

There is a time to break camp, and to break conventions in order to advance in life, If we settle for the familiar and the usual, we may never experience newness. We need to advance - to try something new in life. To take up a challenge. We need to delve into higher territories - to climb hills and mountains, just as God instructed his children to do. The mountains and hills may require extra strength and energy to climb. This is symbolic of new ventures we may embark on, and new and scary endeavours we may undertake. 

As Christians, the Lord may be calling us to preach or share His Good News with people around us, but looking at their reluctance to hearing the Gospel may scare us. The Lord said to his children - "See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land the Lord swore he would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—and to their descendants after them.”  

The Lord has already promised us victory. Is the Lord calling you into a deeper relationship with Him? There is victory ahead. Is He calling you to take up a new vocation or career that seems daunting? He is with you, and has already given you the victory.

There are new territories to explore. A new horizon that we must taste in life. A higher perspective that we must experience, a higher altitude to reach. This could be physical, mental, spiritual, career-wise, education-wise, or something related to marriage and family life. We ought to embrace the challenge, in spite of how impossible it looks, because God is on our side.

Moses sent twelve spies to spy on the land the Lord had promised them. Only two of them believed they could possess it - Caleb and Joshua. The rest cowered in fear of the giants on the land. God was displeased with them, except for Caleb and Joshua who trusted wholly in the promise of God. Because of the fear, mistrust in God's promises that the Israelites harboured, God warned them : But the Lord said to me, “Tell them, ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you. You will be defeated by your enemies.’ Deuteronomy 1:42

If we walk in fear, and distrust God's promises, we will be defeated even before we start. It is by faith that we can take new territories and venture into the promises of God. Just like the father who begged Jesus to heal his son, and yet in his myopic mind harboured fears and doubts, we must face our fear and come before the Lord crying in honesty -  "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" Mark 9:24

Just as Jesus said to this man and demonstrated it by delivering his Son, so is He saying to each and everyone of us, concerning the new territory that we have to possess - "Everything is possible for one who believes." mark 9:23. And concerning his disciples who tried to deliver this boy but could not, similarly Jesus is giving us the key to success and victory, and to possessing God's promises -  “This kind can come out only by prayer (and fasting ).”






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