The other day, while marinating in the Word and pondering the contrast between some of the things I say I believe but seem only to sporadically at best manifest in my life, the Lord helped me to understand the situation with a picture He gave me.
I want you to picture two adjoining fields. The one in which you live has some grass, a few trees and a pond. You can sustain livestock, plant some crops, work hard and get by. The one that joins yours is lush and green, stocked with fruit trees and teeming with life. Waterfalls, lakes and streams abundant with fish, dazzling in their beauty decorate the landscape like diamonds set in fine gold on a beautiful woman.
You live on the sparse ranch, but you have the deed to the other. You look longingly at the beauty of the one you don’t possess and know it is yours, but you don’t know how to enter that land. You have prayed, but the land didn’t come any closer, nor did the one in which you live improve much over the years.
Some have told you that’s not for now… it’s for when you get to heaven. Others have scolded you for ever wanting to enjoy such things when so many have so little. But this land of plenty is not the land of avarice. It is the land of provision. There is no lack, but there is no greed. There is always enough and generosity is the currency of the realm.
So how do you get there? What separates the two properties? This is what I saw… The two properties are divided by a thin shield of what looks like water. You can see through this wall of water. In one sense it was like looking through a bubble that insulated one side from the other. The watery shield had the toughness of a membrane. It took effort to push through. It was in texture like a veil of flesh that must be torn to enter into the spirit realm. It looked like water, but was tough like flesh.
Pushing against it did not work. You needed something sharp to pierce it. Immediately, came the verse from Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” We need the Word of God to pierce the watery, fleshly membrane. But how does that work?
Well my wife quickly added that Deuteronomy 30:14 says, “The word is very near unto you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it.” What word is in your mouth? Paul quotes that very verse in Romans 10:8 and explains it is “the word of faith” As my wife and I discussed this, she pointed out that it is not enough to have the word of God in our mouth. Scripture says we must also do it. We must act on it. Faith without action is dead.
So today I am taking in the Word that I might declare it as appropriate and then act as though it were true. I will cut asunder the tenacious membrane of my flesh, pierce through the watery divide and take up residence on the other side. How long will it take to cut through the membrane? Depends on how gentle I wish to be on my flesh. Right now I am thinking things might get a little messy, but anything worth having is worth struggling for.
Hebrews 4 tells us that we struggle against the flesh to enter the rest. I might need some help pressing through. Want to join me? Request: If you get help from these messages, would you make a special effort today to not only share this message with a friend, but invite them to subscribe. Thanks!