February 25, 2007

Sometimes the will of God can take you into the wilderness. That’s how Jesus got there, anyway. The Bible says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness” (Luke 4:1). It was under the influence of the Holy Spirit Jesus ended up in that place where for forty days he faced the full assault of the devil.

In the season of Lent we are reminded that there are forces at work in the world that are unsympathetic to the ways of God revealed in the life of Jesus. That means they are also unsympathetic to those who embrace Jesus. And why wouldn’t they be? In the life of the Christian the enemy comes face to face with the life of the Spirit of God. So it is that Christians, too, can find themselves “led by the Spirit” into wilderness places.

Just like Jesus, those who live in His life, are enabled in the wilderness to experience the victory that Jesus Himself experienced when He met Satan head on, defeated him three times, and began that winding road to Calvary where He would defeat Satan once and for all, forever. In the wilderness we do not live in defeat. We are nourished by the life of Jesus.

This is why the Gospel is such Good News. To everyone who experiences the wilderness there is a Savior who experienced it, too, a Savior who conquered sin and death and lives as Lord in the world today. Wildernesses can be hot, humid and devastating but they are not Lord. Jesus is Lord. In the desert He brings a stream of life giving water.

So it is every local church is present to invite people to the living water, to that oasis of life where the grace of God flows and where people are renewed, re-energized and redeemed to everlasting life.