MAYBE IT'S TIME TO MOVE

Deuteronomy 1:6 “The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain.”

A.W. Tozer said that if most churches were asked, “What is the worst enemy the church faces today?” most would come up with the wrong answer. He says that many would say that the worst enemy of the church is liberalism.

Tozer goes on to say that, “The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes ‘lord’ in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal.

This is what had happened to the Israelites. In our scripture, the Israelites have taken an eleven day journey from Egypt to the Promised Land and it turned it into a forty year experience in the desert. Normally it takes only eleven days to travel from Mt. Sinai to Kadesh-barnea. Kadesh-barnea was the threshold of promise. It was the desert entry point to the Promised Land. It was the place from where they sent the twelve spies to spy out the land. They had been held back and detained by God himself. But one day, God said to them, you have stayed too long in this place. It is time to move out and move forward.

For you and me, this may be an important mandate as well. Sometimes it is so easy to be settled in a certain place. We can get very comfortable going through routine and maintaining the status quo. Spiritually speaking, we can go through the motions of our walk with God without moving out, moving on, or moving up with him. This can be a dangerous in which to live. Complacency, according to Aesop, “chews up character, value, and truth.” It brings us to a place where we believe a lie about ourselves. Have you ever found yourself satisfied with something less than what you originally desired? Complacency will convince us to settle.

Perhaps our complacency may be rooted in a tendency to live in the past. The past, both the good and the bad tend to keep us stuck in the present. If we have failed in the past then we may allow the past to tell us that we can or cannot be. We allow the past to destroy what God has for us in the present. Don’t get bogged down. Theodore Roosevelt said, "The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. Don’t live in the past. God will tell us also: "You have stayed too long in this place.”

If necessary, start over. Whatever it takes, get moving again and expect the best from your life. Expecting the best means, don’t look anymore to the negative areas of your life. Always be positive. Did you know that Mohammed Ali only lost two fights in his lifetime? And both of these fights had one thing in common that was different from all the other fights: in a press conference prior to the fight, he said, "Now, if I lose this fight..." It’s the only time he ever said it, and he lost them both. Expecting the best means looking for the positive areas of your life. Don’t focus on the negative. Don’t get stuck. Move to the new level that God has ready for you.