The Crossroads

[Ebn Barbara]

Moses said to the people:
“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil… I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).

Moses has put the people in front of a crossroads, for he said I have set before you:

Life and death

Good and evil

Blessing and cursing

It is up to us to choose which road we want to walk on, keeping in mind that each road –as this passage states– has its consequences..
And this is what every person does when the Lord calls them, either they accept the Lord and choose the road of life or they reject Him and choose the road of death.
The story continues with those who choose the Lord and decide to walk after Him, for either they choose to cling to the Lord just as this passage states:
“that you may cling to Him, for He is your life”.
Or to walk in a crooked and impure path, which will expose them to discipline, and will give ground and opportunities to the devil to hurt them and stop them from living a victorious life.
And this is what the apostle James said:
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:8).

Yes, this is the first crossroads where each person has to make a major decision and choose to walk after the Lord, and it is up to every true believer, who wants to be in the perfect will of God for him, to make that choice and walk on that road.
And now we will examine another crossroads; the crossroads that make us live a victorious life, where we enjoy all the promises that the Lord has given us.

Because the purpose of the Lord for all His children can be summarized with these two verses:
“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

“Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” (1 Timothy 6:17).
He gave us with Him all, all, all things freely… and richly given to enjoy..

And you can add under the title “all things” everything you like..
Joy.. peace.. peace of mind.. victory.. protection.. blessings.. health and well-being to the body, the soul and the spirit.. financial prosperity.. and may each one of you add what he needs..
Because all things.. means all things.. and richly given to enjoy
And now shall we revive these promises?
If we were realistic and sincere our answer would of course be: No..
So let us study together to discover the reasons that stop us from that.

After the Lord brought His people from the land of Egypt –the land of slavery– He wanted them to arrive first to “Kadesh Barnea”, why “Kadesh Barnea”?
According to the Smith’s Revised Bible Dictionary (1999) this word means: “the critical spot”, this explanation has a deep spiritual meaning.

For when the people arrived to “Kadesh Barnea” the critical or decisive spot, which was on the borders of the promised land, Moses sent the ten spies to spy on the land. Let us read together the passage where Moses reminded them of this incident, and what he said to them:
“Thus your fathers did when I sent them away from Kadesh Barnea to see the land. For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, so that they did not go into the land which the Lord had given them. So the Lord’s anger was aroused on that day, and He swore an oath, saying, ‘Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and above, shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed Me, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.’ So the Lord’s anger was aroused against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone.”
(Numbers 32:8-13).

Ten of the spies said:
“We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we… The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants… There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” (Numbers 13:31-33).

And two of the spies said:
“… Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it… The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, ‘a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.” (Number 13:30, 14:7-9).

The people then were at a crossroads, at this critical and decisive spot:
Either they trust the Lord for they are the ones who witnessed His miracles, and they choose the right path that will lead them to enter into the promised land, the land of rest, or they don’t trust the Lord, and take side with the ten spies, and do not enter the land of rest.
Regretfully, all of them except Caleb and Joshua did not enter the promised land, -the land of rest- because of their unbelief or frankly speaking rebellion, because unbelief is rebellion.
And it is not by coincidence that in the New Testament, the epistle to the Hebrews warns us by telling us again what happened to them when it says: “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief… And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief… For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them… For we who have believed do enter that rest… Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.” (Hebrews 3:11-4:11).
These words are hard, but they are from God: an evil heart of unbelief.. unbelief in God’s sight is the same as disobedience, even more rebellion!!!

Beloved: the objective of this meditation today, is to bring to your attention that we will stand at this crossroads everyday and may be several times a day, while dealing with small or big matters. I am also trying to draw a map for you to follow, when due to the confusion, the wandering, the temptations we are exposed to, and due to the wars, the pressures and the hardships that Satan puts on us, we might lose the vision, and choose the wrong path that will very often take us to dangerous places and lead to bad and very difficult consequences..

Each crossroads we stand at has two choices not three:
Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.. or.. We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we..

All of us without any exceptions, entered the kingdom but are still burdened with many heavy yokes and bondages, which causes are many, but I will not get into those details because what is important for us today is to know the way to be set free from those causes and their torture.. to enjoy richly what the Lord did for us.. You can add to these burdens the wars, pressures, and trials that Satan is trying to attack us with..

Let us put this subject in a practical way:

Fear, anxiety and worry: the majority of believers suffer from these things, you fear and worry about your children, you fear and worry about your health, you are afraid from failure, you are afraid from not being able to meet your financial needs, you are afraid from the political situation of the country… etc..

Where is the crossroads here?
Either you say that you cannot be set free, because fear is stronger than you and you tried many times without any success, and you fall down under this great torture, -the word of God also says that fear is torture- and you surrender to self-pity, and you live like this all your life, or you can say: Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it; you believe God’s promises for you in this area, and you walk with Him on the path of freedom no matter how long or difficult it might be..

Intense sadness, not being able to rejoice, pessimism and negative expectations, for there are many people who always expect that something bad and dangerous will happen to them, low self-esteem, feelings of rejection, depression… you can add to this list similar things you may be suffering from..

Where is the crossroads here?
The same principle we mentioned when talking about fear, anxiety and worry applies..

Beloved, the majority will make the same choice as the ten spies: We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.. whether they are standing in front of one problem or several ones.. but today in Jesus Name, we will change our choices and make the same choice as Joshua and Caleb and say: Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it..

What is the key?
Faith.. because the conversation language with the Lord is faith, therefore:
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him…” (Hebrews 11:6).

Faith that works through two major things: Love and the Fear of the Lord.
“… faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:6).
Faith working through the Lord’s love for me, not through my love for Him, the unconditional love, for when I look at the cross, and I realize that the Father did not withhold His only Son but gave Him up for me and gave me all things through Him, and when I realize in my being as the epistle to the Romans says: nothing can separate me from the love of the Father for me, and I enjoy the complete love of the Lord for me, only then will I be able to trust Him and believe in Him.. Whoever is lacking this conviction about the unconditional love of God for him, should cry out with all his being to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to reveal this love to him to cast out all doubts, because without this revelation one cannot trust God, so how can he trust anyone else, when he believes He doesn’t love him? Or he believes God loves him at times and at other He doesn’t!!!

And the second verse says: “In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence…”
(Proverbs 14:26).
For when the fear of the Lord is in my heart, meaning I live in obedience to the Lord, respecting all His commandments, and I have a pure and sincere heart concerning sin, meaning that whenever I sin, I repent and move away from it, the Holy Spirit will strengthen my faith and trust in the Lord..

And where do I find faith?
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8).
Yes.. faith is not of yourself, but it is a free gift from God..

The word says that the Lord gave each one of us a measure of it freely:
“… as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3).

And we receive it and make it grow, through our daily fellowship with the Lord and His word with the leading of the Holy Spirit:
“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17).

My faith increases and grows especially in the midst of hardships, trials and adversities, and through my meditation in the word of God, and by the promises that are suitable for the problem that I am facing, my faith will be lifted up because I am fallowing the directives of the Lord in this area, and then my words will be like the words of Joshua and Caleb: I will go up at once and take possession, for I am well able to overcome it, and not as the words of the ten spies, for the book of Proverbs says:
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” (Proverbs 18:21).

Finally, with the objective of taking maximum advantage of this meditation, and with the objective of putting an end to the miserable and hopeless life that many of us are living without knowing how to get out of it, let us take some simple and practical examples:
In front of each circumstance or scary or troubling situation, and in front of every financial difficulty or crisis in the home regarding the relationships between family members, or regarding the children’s behavior that might be worrying sometimes, or in front of a certain sickness that might affect you or affect a family member, or in front of situations of failure or depression that you may go through, or in front of many similar things, I have the choice to either speak words of life and live the victorious life or to speak the words of unbelief, words of death and die collapsing under the pressure of the trials, and wars of the enemy..

The apostle James says:
“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:6-7).

If your situation was getting worse, and you were always defeated, you are asking with unbelief, and you think you will not receive anything from the Lord; you have resentment in your heart toward the Lord, and you grumble and lament on yourself, this will not help you in anything rather it will make things worse and more complicated. This is why the Lord gave us this word today, because He loves us and He wants a radical change in His children’s lives. He wants to take us out of the prison in which the devil has put us, to bring us out in the open space, to set us free from our bondages, to restore joy to our hearts, a smile to our lips, and peace to our lives, so that we might live the victorious life that He has prepared for us..
Let us say in a loud voice today: Enough.. enough fear, anxiety, torture, struggles, sadness, depression… Let us speak words of life, and each time we stand in “Kadesh Barnea” let us say: Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it..

After today, do not speak words to describe your difficult and depressing situation, rather speak words that will change your situation, in Jesus Name.