There’s a Biblical pattern to inherit the Lord’s promises: the Lord makes bold promises, prepares us to receive them, and helps us enter the promised land.
Recently in my quiet time with the Lord, the Holy Spirit dropped two very specific scriptures into my spirit: Deuteronomy 1:8 and Deuteronomy 8:1. I love it when the Holy Spirit guides me to specific passages of scripture. Even though I am studying my Bible, I definitely am not a seasoned Bible student who has memorized the Word, chapter and verse. So, when He directs me to specific passages, I pay close attention. These two verses were all about entering the promised land. Although I was excited by His invitation to enter the promised land, I needed to understand what exactly this meant.
The Promised Land…
So, what is the promised land? And how do I get there? The Lord has been expanding my notion of what the promised land actually is. As a new believer, I simply equated the promised land with heaven. Further along in my faith walk, I learned that the promised land was a physical place that the Lord had promised to the Israelites. But more recently, the Lord has been showing me a much more nuanced picture of the promised land–as a spiritual process that follows a particular pattern.
Although it can be a physical place, this is not the only form that the promised land can take. The promised land can also be a spiritual promotion in a certain area of our life. So, we can experience a promised land in our physical health. A promised land of financial blessing and abundance. And a promised land in our relationships with friends and family. Ultimately, the Lord invites us to enter into a place of promise–a place of wholeness and abundance–in every area of our lives.
The Pattern…
But this process doesn’t happen all at once. In order to fully enter into these different areas of promise–these promised lands–we must go through a process of spiritual development. And this process follows a Biblical pattern. No matter what the promised destination might be (health, wealth, relationships, etc.), there is a pattern that emerges in scripture that shows us how to arrive there.
If we hope to enter into the Lord’s promises in different areas of our lives, we can expect the pattern to look roughly like this: First, God makes a bold promise. Next, He takes us to a wilderness season, where He prepares us to enter into His promises. Finally, He leads us into the promised land and helps us fight the battles to fully possess it.
The Promise…
By examining the Israelites’ journey from captivity in Egypt to freedom in the promised land, we can clearly see this pattern emerge. First, God made a very bold promise to Abraham:
And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
Genesis 17:8
Mind you, God made this promise to Abraham when Abraham was 90 years old. God promised that he would have a son with his wife, Sarah, who was barren. And all of Abraham’s descendants (the Israelites), would inherit the promised land. Bold is perhaps not even a strong enough word to describe God’s promise here. Impossible might be better suited to describe the magnitude of what God was offering!
And this is how we know a promise is from God. It is big. And bold. And we can be absolutely certain that we will not be able to accomplish the promise in our own strength. We will have to learn to rely on God. And as we can see in Abraham’s story, God is faithful to fulfill the bold promises He makes. Ultimately, God honored His covenant with Abraham. He opened Sarah’s womb, and she bore their son, Isaac. And as promised, Abraham’s descendants–the Israelites–indeed would eventually inherit the promised land.
The Wilderness…
Eventually is the operative word here. Because the promise would not come to pass for many centuries. First, the Israelites endured 400 years of captivity in Egypt. Then there was the exodus into the wilderness. And not long into their wilderness season, the Israelites were already getting impatient. They thought that they were headed to the promised land, but now they found themselves in very immediate danger. They were being pursued by the Egyptian army and pressed up against the Red Sea with nowhere to turn. That’s when they started to question Moses, and ultimately, God.
And they said unto Moses, ‘Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?’
Exodus 14:11
This might sound strange, but this particular passage of scripture has haunted me. It reminds me of a very difficult season when my husband and I were going through a wilderness in our finances. To spare you all the ugly details, let’s just say I was having a very hard time trusting God’s process, and I did not understand this pattern that I’m describing now. I was complaining, grumbling, worrying and doubting. Gripped by fear, essentially I was accusing my husband and God of trying to harm me rather than help me. Had I understood then what the Lord has shown me now, perhaps I would have handled that wilderness season with much more peace and grace!
Preparation…
But so often when we have a promise from the Lord, we get impatient because we think it should happen right away. He says it. And just like that: boom! We’re in the promised land. Wouldn’t that be nice? Well, actually it wouldn’t be.
If the Lord were to allow us to go straight into the promised land, we would not be prepared to handle the battles or the blessings there. So, in His infinite wisdom, God first leads us in a direction that seems to be the opposite of the promised land. Although it might not be where we want to go, the wilderness is precisely where we need to go.
It’s in the wilderness that God prepares us to eventually enter the promised land. Consider all the preparation that the Lord gave the Israelites. Within the first two years, God gave them manna, and He led them in perfect safety. He gave them law with the Ten Commandments, and He established the feasts they would follow. He also provided them instructions for how to build the tabernacle. All of these preparations were to equip them to enter the land of Canaan.
Lengthening Our Stay…
Just like the Israelites, we don’t get to know exactly how long our wilderness seasons will last. But we can see from the pattern with the Israelites that if we don’t learn the lessons the Lord is trying to teach us, we can lengthen our stay in the wilderness.
After a couple years of preparation, the Israelites were just on the brink of entering the promised land. When the twelve scouts went into Canaan to get a lay of the land, ten of them came back with a negative report. They frightened the rest of the Israelites as they described the giants that inhabited the land.
Only two scouts, Caleb and Joshua, said that the land was truly the wonderful promised land that the Lord had promised them. Full of faith, they tried to assure the people that the Lord would help them defeat the giants. But swayed by their fears, the Israelites opted to turn away from the promised land, thus returning to wander the wilderness for another 38 years!
For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: unto whom the LORD sware that he would not shew them the land, which the LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey.
Joshua 5:6
Beloved, even when the testing and trials of the wilderness seem impossible to face, we can rest assured that the Lord is up to our good. It is not His plan or desire to abandon us in the middle of the wilderness. But it is His purpose to prepare and refine us there so that we will be fully equipped to enter and possess the promised land.
Entering the Promised Land…
When the Israelites finally entered the promised land, they had to face the giants there. But the Lord promised to fight for and protect them:
Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee.
Deuteronomy 9:3
So often in the battles, God simply instructed the Israelites to show up and stand still. As they stood firm, the Lord fought and won the battles for them. And this is how they fully possessed the promised land. By having faith in the One who had made the bold promise, by trusting the One who faithfully instructed and led them through the wilderness and by putting their confidence in the One who delivered them from all their enemies in the promised land.
The Lord is leading each one of us into greater and greater promises as we walk with Him. If we’ll trust His process and follow His divine pattern, we too will inherit His promises. We too shall enter His promised land.
If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.
Numbers 14:8
Has the Lord made you a bold promise? How has He prepared you in the wilderness? Have you entered a promised land in an area of your life?
All scripture references are from The King James Version of The Bible.
