Crossing Over Into Promise

There's something that happens on the inside of you when you've been in the same place too long. You can't always name it, but you feel it.

Maybe you've been circling the same mountain for so long that it feels familiar. Same patterns. Same struggles. Same conversations with God about the same things. But it is time to cross over into promise!

You're Not Still in the Desert Because God Forgot About You

Let's be honest, we've sometimes confused being stuck with being faithful. We've called it patience, when it's been fear. We've called it waiting on God, when we've been waiting on ourselves, waiting until we feel ready, feel safe, feel certain.

The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Not because God wasn't ready to bring them into the Promised Land. The land was always there. But you cannot enter new territory with an unrenewed mind or being obedient to God’s will and voice.

Joshua understood this. He had seen the land. He believed what he had seen and he knew his God. And when it was his time to lead the people across the Jordan, God didn't say "hold on while I lower the level of the river." The river was flooding, at its peak, in full force, and God said, step in.

It is Time to Cross Over. Follow the Ark as the Presence Leads the way

The Jordan Is Flooding, Step In Anyway

Joshua 3:3-4 says: "When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before."

Read that again slowly. You have never been this way before.

God is not calling you back to what was comfortable. God is not restoring the familiar. God is not leading you around the same mountain or the same pattern of thought. The Lord is leading you somewhere you've never been and that is supposed to feel unfamiliar.

But here's something you must know: before one foot went into the Jordan, there was a command. Consecrate yourselves. Set yourselves apart. God is calling you to get into the secret place. To remove what has taken the place of God in your life.

Consecration and preparation must precede the crossing over.

There Are Devoted Things That Need to Go

Joshua 7:13 is one of the most confronting verses in scripture: "There are devoted things among you, Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them."

This is not talking about obvious, dramatic sin, though it may include that. It's talking about the things you've devoted yourself to that were never supposed to have that level of authority in your life.

Hidden things. Comfortable things. The offence you've been nursing for three years. The hurt you managed instead of getting healing. The self-protection that looks like wisdom, but is actually fear. The opinion of people that you've allowed to sit on the throne of your heart above the voice of God.

You cannot stand against your enemy while you're holding onto those things. Because every time you've tried to move forward, those things have pulled you back.

Emotions Are Not a Navigation System

Spiritual immaturity keeps you circling and will keep pulling you back. Spiritual immaturity or maturity isn't about how long you've been saved, it's about whether you are led by the Spirit or by your feelings.

When you ride your emotions, you will praise God when things are good and become silent when things are hard. You will advance when you feel inspired and retreat when you feel rejected. You will stay in Gilgal, which literally means circle, because your unhealed wounds keep distorting your perspective and you keep making decisions from that unhealed place.

Romans 12:2 says: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Transformation begins in the mind. Which means you have to let God into the places you've kept locked, the woundedness, the beliefs about yourself that were spoken over you by people who didn't know your God-given identity, the way you've interpreted your pain or held onto an offense.

Unhealed hurt is like a magnifying glass. It makes everything look bigger than it is, because you're looking through a lens that hasn't been brought to the Lord for healing. You haven't been dealing with it. You've been managing it. And there's a difference.

Dying to Self Is Not a One-Time Altar Call

John 12:24 says: "Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

Dying to self is a daily act of surrender. It's letting God correct you, and receiving that correction without shutting down, deflecting, blaming or making it about someone else.

It's choosing what God says over what your feelings are telling you. It's choosing obedience when it makes no logical sense or it is hard!

Abraham didn't sacrifice Isaac because it made sense. He did it because he knew God. He was able to lay down the most precious thing in his life because his maturity had grown to the point where he understood: God knows best, even when I can't see the outcome.

That's the seed of maturity. That's where crossing over begins.

What You Do Next Matters

There are three things the Word makes clear you must do to cross over:

1. Consecrate yourself

Get alone with God. Not just Sunday mornings and thirty-second prayers before. You leave for work. Into the secret place, where you hear the Lord, where the noise stops and the Presence becomes real. Be set apart. Let Isaiah 30:22 happen in your life: "You will throw them away and say, 'Away with you!'" to whatever has become an idol, even a subtle one.

Consecrate Yourself, we are crossing over

2. Move at the right time and the right time is now

The river was flooding when Israel crossed. God didn't wait for comfortable conditions. Neither should you. If you're waiting until something makes more sense or you feel more ready, you may miss God’s timing.

Step in. The waters will part when your feet hit the water.

The waters will part as your feet touch the water

3. Follow the Presence

The priests went first, carrying the Ark.

Before any strategy, any platform, any plan, follow the Presence of God. Let the Lord direct your path. That requires obedience and consistency and not just intent.

This Is Not a Season to Stay Where You Are

God is doing something in this hour that requires a people who have laid down the devoted things. Who have consecrated themselves. Who are not ruled by their wounds or their emotions or other people's opinions.

You have to be willing to move out from your position and follow where the Lord leads, even when you've never been this way before.

Cross over. The new is waiting.