Lord of the desert
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Luke 4:1
How did Jesus become lord of the desert? He overcame by the word of God. He spoke the truth to his tempter, thus giving no room for the devil and his lies.
But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.'”Luke 4:4
How great an example for us but yet so profoundly simple. May we follow in the footsteps of Jesus our Lord when the spirit leads us into the desert. Then we too will, in Christ, be victorious.
“On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is shifting sand”
So when you encounter the shifting sands of the desert remember the truth and speak it aloud to your tempter. Then you too will be victorious!
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32
Desert notes-
expect hunger, thirst and weakness. – Psalm 42:2, 102:1
Look for temptation – be on guard! – 2 Timothy 2:22
Keep it simple. Don’t look across the vastness of your desert. One step of faith at a time. -Psalm 119:105
Remember, remember! Don’t allow your current circumstances to dry up your pool of remembrances
-Psalm 103:2-3
Live counterintuitively. Don’t allow your situation to control you. Choose truth over human reasoning and perception.
– Proverbs 3:5-6
Expect storms out of seemingly nowhere. When the enemy comes at you like a flash flood- 1 Peter 5:8
Keep the truth as your barometer and attitude-meter. It may appear to the untrained heart and mind that the Lord has forgotten and forsaken you. – Deuteronomy 31:6
Remember – you have not charted this land before but know that He goes before you and is sovereign. -Isaiah 45:2
It’s not the end. Expect something new above and beyond what you can ask or imagine -Eph. 3:30-21
The following is taken from Streams in the Desert
The Greatest Pains
As many as I love I rebuke and chasten – Rev 3:19
God takes the most eminent and choicest of His servants for the choicest and most eminent afflictions. They who have received most grace from God are able to bear most afflictions from God. Affliction does not hit the saint by chance, but by direction. God does not draw His bow at a venture. Every one of His arrows goes upon a special errand and touches no breast but his against whom it is sent. It is not only the grace, but the glory of a believer when we can stand and take affliction quietly. —Joseph Caryl
If all my days were sunny, could I say,
“In His fair land He wipes all tears away”?
If I were never weary, could I keep
Close to my heart, “He gives His loved ones sleep”?
Were no graves mine, might I not come to deem
The Life Eternal but a baseless dream?
My winter, and my tears, and weariness,
Even my graves, may be His way to bless.
I call them ills; yet that can surely be
Nothing but love that shows my Lord to me!
—Selected
“The most deeply taught Christians are generally those who have been brought into the searching fires of deep soul-anguish. If you have been praying to know more of Christ, do not be surprised if He takes you aside into a desert place, or leads you into a furnace of pain.”
Do not punish me, Lord, by taking my cross from me, but comfort me by submitting me to Thy will, and by making me to love the cross. Give me that by which Thou shalt be best served … and let me hold it for the greatest of all Thy mercies, that Thou shouldst glorify Thy name in me, according to Thy will. —A Captive’s Prayer
