September 24, 2023

You can’t sow in Moab and reap in Israel. You can’t want earthly acclaim and Moab’s popularity and gain the heart of Judah. You can’t long for the successes of the world and reap the fruit of spiritual breakthroughs and encounter the incomparable supernatural. The nativity of the flesh was in Moab but the spiritual future, her significant part of Messianic lineage came when she left Moab behind. The lingering shame. The call of yesterday’s affections. The reach of people once loved. The connections of Moab’s causes. The fears of not being accepted in a strange land, in a new experience. The emotions conjured up when you think of things you knew in the land of your nativity, in the sinner’s home of spiritual Moab. But you have to leave it behind. You have to let it go. You have to loosen yourself from the binds that tie you to family traditions and long-ago influences. Eventually, the pressures subside. The temptations to go back, to do those things again are distant and cloudy and too ambiguous to challenge you.

Abraham left the Ur of the Chaldees for the yearning of a Kingdom.

Peter, James, and John left fishermen’s nets to explore the seas of the Gospel.

Jacob left his homeland for the people of the East and came back decades later with children who would make up the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jesus left behind heaven to deliver the world from hell.

Paul left behind Gamaliel’s teaching to take up the mantle of the Gospel to the Gentiles. Listen now…

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