Monday, March 18, 2013

It's Time to Break Camp!

Deuteronomy 1:6
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 Giants.

If you are not careful you can get comfortable camping out in a place of good enough and miss the place of Greater than. God has so much more in store for us but we’ve been camping out in a place that is just short of our potential. Our fear and disobedience in facing the challenges of our new place has caused us to camp out in the place of toxic contemplation and God has to remind us we’ve been here too long.

Israel should have been in the Promised Land by now but they let the negative reports of Giants and fortified cities make them feel inferior. It’s amazing how God can show us something and then we let the negative opinions of others sway us into a place of fear and second guessing. As a result of the fearful opinion of the ten spies and total disregard for the vision of Joshua and Caleb, the people decided to camp outside the Promised Land. God said, ‘since you won’t go, I’ll keep you out. God said, he would let a new generation go in. (Verses 39-40)

When the old generation decided to try and go fight anyway after the fact, they were defeated and came back licking their wounds and had to camp out. Moses tells the younger generation, ‘you’ve been here too long. We’ve been broke too long. Too many have been incarcerated in our inner cities too long, our children have been gunned down for too long, we’ve been talking about doing something in our community for too long!”
It’s time to…
  1. Break Camp. When you break camp you pick up your tents, and start packing up what was supposed to be temporary to move on to what is permanent. When you break camp you leave your place of comfort in pursuit of that which is better and sustainable.
  2. Advance. It’s time to go forward and stop being stagnant. God’s people should be making progress and not camping out. What is it that you should be doing but you know you’ve been camping? Is there a degree you need to finish? Is there a book you need to write? Is there a language you need to take?
  3. Go Face your Giants. Sometimes, the challenges in front of us seem bigger than us but we must believe that the bigger they are the harder they fall. If God is for you then who can be against you?!
Dear God,

I’m ready to break Camp! I’m not afraid to advance and face my giants. Just go with me, give me favor, and the strength to fight. I believe you are going to give me what you promised me. It’s time to Break Camp.

In Jesus Name,
Amen

No comments:

Post a Comment