Surprised you didn’t know that.
Morning, brothers and sisters. I’m sorry, my voice is a little shaky this morning, so I hope you guys can bear with it. I’m soft enough as it is, and now it’s going to be worse.
There. Is that better?
Let’s go ahead and read a couple of verses from Hebrews 11, starting with verse 8.
By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out unto the place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
And then on to verse 13.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own.
And if indeed they had been mindful of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we again come to just give You thanks for the redeemed possession that we are of You. Lord, we want to thank You that You spared no cost in redeeming us.
And Lord, because You’ve redeemed us, we come to You through the blood of Jesus Christ, Your Son, through the power of His resurrection, and ask, Lord, that You would speak to us for this day; that You would encourage us, Lord, to be like Abram and Isaac and Jacob, those who are seeking that heavenly city.
We ask this in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
Like I said, I was surprised you didn’t know that hymn. I’ve got to say that three or four times. How many don’t know that hymn? It’s okay. I mean, you can’t get in trouble. Okay, okay, I’m just curious.
Actually, I’m not going to speak about that, except in the sense that it’s something that drew Abraham out. I think when Abraham says the God of glory appeared to Abraham, He showed him the city.
He didn’t show him some visible apparition of a man or something like that, but when He called him out, He showed him the city. Because how else would Abraham be looking for a city? He must have seen something.
So when he went out, when it says he didn’t know where he was going, well, he didn’t know where he was going, but he knew what he was looking for. He was looking for the city.
He became a pilgrim—not one of those guys who we celebrate on Thanksgiving. But a pilgrim is a wanderer. It’s somebody who’s looking for something or Someone.
When I was preparing for this, before the conference we had a prayer meeting. A verse from Romans 13 was read where it said, “It is high time to awake.” Is that Romans 13:11? Yeah, that’s the one.
And this, knowing the time, that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep.
And that really hit me. I think, when we were praying, when that verse was shared with us the first time, it was the Lord. It was like the Lord speaking to us: “It’s high time to wake.”
And this is what I want to speak about today. I don’t want to speak about Zion as it is, but I want to speak about being a pilgrim. I don’t want to come and define what a pilgrim is, but I want to ask this question, because this is the question I’ve had to ask myself.
Am I still a pilgrim?
Are we still pilgrims? Is this still our confession, that we’re pilgrims, that we’re looking for something that we haven’t wholly found yet? We’ve found tastes of it, but we haven’t wholly grasped it yet and come into all the good of what we’re looking for. But we’re still seeking to find it.
Or have I settled down? Have I settled down in my pursuit, and am I no longer pursuing the thing that first captured me—the thing I first saw, the One I first saw?
And so that’s the question I want to put to us this morning: Have I settled down? Am I still a pilgrim, or have I settled down?
Now, you remember how you became a pilgrim? It was just like Abraham that we read in Hebrews. The Lord called to Abraham. He called him out. That’s how we all become pilgrims. That’s how we all start to follow Him.
That’s why we all start looking for the things that He’s promised us, but hasn’t just given to us willy-nilly, so to speak. He’s given us a promise and said, “Come out.” And we did. We came out of our lives and stuff like that, and we started following. We started looking for all that Christ has for us.
It was just like Abraham. He was called of God, and he obeyed that calling. He went out to find a city. It wasn’t just any city; it was the city that God had shown him, and it was the city that God is building—still building it, brick by brick, piece by piece.
In obeying that call, Abraham made a statement. He was making a statement to the world. It was a confession. By leaving Ur of the Chaldees, which was where he lived, he was saying to this world, “I’m no longer in this place. This is no longer my home.”
That old Stuart Hamblen song says, “This world is not my home; I’m just passing through.” Well, when he left Ur, he was saying, “This world is no longer my home.”
Not only that, but by leaving, he was renouncing his citizenship—doing away with all the rights and everything he had in this world. He was saying, “I don’t want it anymore. I want a different citizenship.”
He was renouncing his allegiance to this world. “I am no longer loyal to the things of this world.” Whether they be governments—that’s not saying that you go out and become an anarchist or something like that—but it is saying, “My loyalty isn’t to this government. My loyalty is to something higher.”
And for many of us, we made a confession too when we first started to follow the Lord. It wasn’t just that we said we prayed the sinner’s prayer. Many of us were baptized. Some of us were baptized right away; some of us were baptized maybe a year or two later.
But in that baptism, what we were saying is, “I don’t belong to this world anymore. I’m dead to this world.” As we went down into the water and came up, we said, “I’m now alive to God.” That was our confession.
And the question is: Is it still our confession? Are we still those who confess, “I’m no longer of this world”—not confessing just with our mouths, but confessing with our lives?
Because, you know, talk’s cheap. You really know where a person is when you watch them and see where they’re living. You don’t have someone saying, “Do what I say, not what I do.” But you can be like Paul, who says, “Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.”
The life confirms the words. And the question I have asked myself is, does my life confirm that I’m a pilgrim? Or does my life show that I’ve settled down?
I’ve had to take hard looks at myself—not in a condemning way, not in order to say, “Oh, you bad guy,” but in the way of letting the Lord find me out. “Lord, find me out, because if I’m not a pilgrim, then I’ve settled down. I want to be following on with You. I want to be pursuing You.”
If we’re waiting for the Lord to come back, what does that mean? Do we settle down in our seats and say, “Okay, we’re waiting for You to come back”? Or are we going after Him to come back? Are we seeking after Him, still pursuing Him?
It’s like with marriages. Are you still pursuing that relationship with your wife or your husband? That’s what makes things alive. That’s what makes things more real. Or do you just settle down and say, “Hey, this is the way it is”?
Abraham went out, and then it says he dwelt in tents. Now, what is a tent? Personally, I don’t like tents. First, because you have to put them up, and I’m not good at that.
But the tent isn’t a permanent dwelling. The tent is made so that you can easily take it up and move on. That’s why those guys in the army use tents: pack up and go; we’re moving on; we’re getting out of here.
It is a temporary setting until we move again. Just like the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt, they dwelt in tents, going from place to place, following the pillar of cloud and fire.
The cloud’s moving: pack up the tents. The cloud’s not moving: we sit down here. But it’s temporary, because we know it’s going to move sooner or later. We’re ready for it, and we’re watching.
A tent is a mark that you’re pursuing something. You’re not settling. You don’t settle in a tent. A tent is something movable, and so you can go wherever your home is. Wherever you go now is your home, as you’re following after Him.
Abraham was in a tent because he was looking for the city. He was traveling from place to place, looking for the city, seeking this homeland, desiring a better—a heavenly country. Not something earthly, not something temporal, but something eternal.
Oh, man, there’s that word. Does eternity even touch us anymore? The weight of eternity—does eternity have any weight with us? Or does the temporal have all the weight in the world?
For those of us who have eternity in our hearts, an economic crisis is a bump in the road. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I’m just saying it’s a bump in the road, because our hearts are gripped with eternity and the weight of eternity. This is temporary.
There are many places that pilgrims choose to settle, ending their pilgrimage. Some of them are good, spiritual places. Some of them are places that choke and replace in our hearts all that seeks for what is eternal.
I’m going to take five places. I’m going to look at the negative ones first. By negative, I mean they choke out our desire for the spiritual, for the eternal. Then I’m going to look at two that we would think are really good places to be.
The first one is the city of Shechem. It is found in Genesis 33–34. We have the story of Jacob coming to dwell in Shechem.
Now, let me make this really clear: settling down is never an abrupt thing. It’s a subtle thing. We’re sitting in our tents for a while and looking for the Lord, and pretty soon we see something we like. Then all of a sudden we start digging a foundation and putting up a fence.
That’s kind of what happened with Jacob in Genesis 33. The people of Shechem invited him to live there, trade with them, and enjoy their goods. Jacob thought about it, because Jacob was a businessman.
Shechem has to do with the meaning of “shoulder.” Why a shoulder? Because the shoulder is where our strength is. And if Shechem is symbolic of strength, then it could refer to your natural strength.
The question is: What do I give my strength to?
For many of us, we give it to our jobs. We give all our strength to our jobs. Now, jobs—I’m not just talking about going to work, because not all of us go to work.
For you guys who are students, your job is school. Your job is to study. You give your life to study because you want to go to a good college, or if you’re in college, you want to have a good job.
For housewives, your job is raising your family and keeping home. That definitely is a very demanding life. And for those of us who are employees or own our own business—oh boy, you own your own business—that’s really giving your strength, because that takes everything.
I’m not saying you’re not supposed to give your strength to your job, because you do. But Jacob bought land in Shechem. In other words, he bought into something.
What we buy into when we give our whole strength to our jobs is the idea that work brings prosperity. Prosperity can mean different things. To a student, prosperity may mean a better college or a better job. To a housewife, it may mean that the family and home are in order.
For those of us with businesses or paying jobs, we work harder, get more money, and think our family is better off. We have better toys. We want the iPhone, the iBook, the new car, the siding on the house.
We buy into the idea that these things are what make life good. “My hard work is what makes my life good.”
I know my dad was like that. My dad was a child of the Depression. I remember my dad saying to us boys especially, “I don’t want you guys to have to live like I lived.”
My dad worked. He was always at work. He left at six in the morning to be in the traffic in Los Angeles, and he wasn’t home until eleven at night. Sometimes he went in on Saturdays. He had given himself to his job.
When he lost his union election and lost that job, he was like, “I don’t know what to do with myself.” It was hard because he had bought into this idea: “My job is what counts the most. I give my strength to my job, and this is where my life is.”
Jacob built an altar at Shechem and named it El-Elohe-Israel—God, the God of Israel. In other words, what he was doing, what he was pursuing, became his god.
And the question is: Have I made my work, my vocation, or my school my god? Has that become the one that I serve?
Do I derive my chief satisfaction—notice, I didn’t say satisfaction, because many of us are satisfied with our jobs—but do I derive my chief joy from my job? If it’s my chief joy, where has God gone? He’s not my chief joy.
God said in Deuteronomy, “Love Me with all your mind, your soul, your heart, and your strength.” That’s God’s thing: “I want your strength.” Your job calls for the same homage.
That’s why Jesus says you can’t serve God and Mammon, because you’ll either love one and hate the other. Those of us who have found this out know it to be true.
To stay in Shechem is to be drawn into its culture. It calls you to lose your separateness and your holiness to the Lord, who calls you out to Himself for His purposes.
We’ve come out. We’ve been separated. When we come out, we’re separated to the Lord. We’re no longer of this world. We separate ourselves from the world’s goals and what it is pursuing.
You can’t pursue both. You’re going to have to make a choice one day to serve one or the other. And it’s going to hurt. Sorry, it’s going to hurt. That’s why the rich young ruler went away sad when Jesus said, “Sell all you have and come and follow Me.” It hurt, because it means death to something.
But if you’re going to be a pilgrim, some things have to die. Have you settled in Shechem? Have I settled in Shechem? That’s the question I have to ask. I can’t tell you where you’ve settled, or if you’ve settled. That’s between you and the Lord.
Another place some people settle is Sodom. You find it in Genesis 13, Genesis 14:12, and Genesis 19. Sodom is symbolic of the sensual.
We have a very narrow view of the sensual, because when we think sensual, we think sexual. But it isn’t just sexual; it’s sensual. It appeals to our senses—what we touch, what we see, what we hear, what we taste, and what we smell.
When Lot was first drawn toward Sodom, he wasn’t drawn toward the licentious living there. He looked toward Sodom and saw that the land was green and lush. With his eyes, he said, “Man, this is like the garden of Eden.”
He was drawn by the lust of the eyes. This wasn’t a sexual thing. It was simply, “This looks good to me.” We can say, “This job looks good to me. This home looks good to me.” It appeals to our senses.
Eve saw that the fruit was pleasant to the eyes and desirable to make one wise. It appealed to her senses. Really, what sensual means is, “I do what is right in my own eyes because it appeals to me. This looks good to me, and so I do what is good for me.”
Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom in Genesis 13. In Genesis 14, he was in the city. In Genesis 19, he was in the gate of the city—in a place of prominence. He was drawn in little by little.
We may not be lured by outward sexuality, but things are subtle. We are lured by things that appeal to our senses.
What is the appeal of video games? I’m not saying you shouldn’t have video games, but what’s the appeal? Oh, it’s so visual. “This looks so cool.” Call of Duty—it looks cool. There’s nothing like being in a war where you’re not going to get killed. You get to get up and try again.
Even if it’s Mario: “Oh, isn’t that cool? A little castle.” How many of you know the songs to those things? Senses, right? When you close your eyes, you have the imprint of the games you play right on your eyes. Every time I used to close my eyes, it was Tetris.
The draw is sensual—the graphics, the look, the sounds. Why do we watch television? We want to look at something. You like the story. Why do you want to live in a neighborhood? It looks good. It could be Sodom; who knows? But it looks good from the outside.
Second Timothy talks about having itching ears. We don’t like people telling us things that hurt. We’d rather hear, “Jim, you’re such a good person. You’re good. You’re great.” We have itching ears. We want people to tell us how good we are, or how to be better without pain.
Being tied to physical senses makes you shallow. It just makes you shallow. Nothing goes very deep in you because your senses rule you. Your morals are shallow, your convictions are shallow, and your consecration is shallow—whether it be to the Lord, to your spouse, to your kids, or to your job.
Unfortunately, I see this as a teacher. I see how shallow the generation coming up can be, where they can’t even sit and read a novel. I ask my kids all the time, “How many of you guys read for pleasure?” The numbers are dwindling.
They’re so essentially in need of stimulus that after two paragraphs, or a page, or something like that, they’ve got to do something else.
In the sixties and the seventies, we had a motto: “If it feels good, do it.” How sensual. Why did people do drugs? It feels good. Why do people embrace a licentious lifestyle? Because it feels good.
But what happens in Sodom is that we find ourselves tolerating things that become addicting habits—notice, I didn’t just say habits; I said addicting habits—that take us away from the Lord by taking up our time and our thoughts.
They make us susceptible to other suggestions that lead us into sin and entangle us. That’s a mouthful there, hasn’t it? But it’s the truth. We have to be careful. We have to watch our hearts.
The physical is being lured here, but it pollutes the spirit. It clogs up the way to the spirit with junk. Some of the things we’re led into are hard to kick over.
Sodom does lead to the sexual. It does. And when you get there, you’re in for hard times. You need to take my word for that.
Lot got so entangled that he had to be dragged out of Sodom. It was almost against his will. That’s how strong the pull of sensuality is.
Have you pitched your tent up by Sodom? Be careful.
Third place: the land east of the Jordan. Remember when the Israelites were coming in, about to go into the promised land? Two and a half tribes said, “Hey, Moses, can we stay here? Look around here. It’s so green. We’ve got cattle here. The kids can be here. This is really cool.”
They already had some victory. Remember, they beat Og and Sihon, the kings out there. That’s found in Numbers 32. In other words, they were satisfied with life as it was.
They said, “We’re the chosen people. We’ve been delivered out of Egypt. Look at this place. We’ve got all the prosperity we need right here. We’re in the promised land. We’ve got stuff. It can’t get any better than this.”
Materially, “God’s blessed me, and I’m in the land of promise.” But when you stop going forward, unfortunately, you begin an almost indiscernible slide backward.
This is much like the people in Laodicea: “We don’t need anything.” Yet they could not see what really had happened.
The people who settled east of the Jordan were the first ones carried away into captivity. And when the Lord came and walked this earth, what did He find east of the Jordan?
He found people spiritually oppressed. He went to the Gadarenes in Mark 5 and found that man with a legion of demons—a legion, not just a demon. That’s three to six thousand.
And the people were making money herding swine. How unkosher. But, “You know something? That’s okay. We’re making a good living.”
Is that what the Lord is going to find when He returns? People living on the east side of the Jordan, making a bundle of money in things that are unclean and being spiritually oppressed because of the things they’re dealing with?
When deliverance came, they said, “Please, Lord, go away. You’re wrecking our life. We like life the way it is.” That’s the danger of settling east of the Jordan: enjoying life the way it is. “I’ve got the Lord. I’ve got fire insurance. But I’ve got my life too.”
There are good places to settle too—good pilgrim places—like Gilgal in Joshua 5. This is where they first entered the land, crossed the Jordan, and were circumcised.
Gilgal was a place where the reproach was rolled away—the place where the reproach of our sin has been rolled away because Christ has died for us.
They were circumcised again: the sign, “I belong to God.” This talks about a right standing in Christ. It talks about our justification. It talks about our forgiveness. This is a good place to dwell.
But if I stay in Gilgal, I never find that I can have further victory. I never find victory at Jericho. I never find that I can be defeated at Ai and still be forgiven. I never find that I can defeat thirty-one kings.
It’s a good place to be, isn’t it? But you don’t go any further. We’re forever just singing the same songs. There are no new songs of victory; it’s all the same old songs.
You can sing the same song over and over, but when you come into a new experience of the Lord, that song has new meaning to you, and you sing it differently because of what has been done in your heart. You don’t have that if you settle in Gilgal.
What about Bethel? This is where a lot of us are. Bethel is in Genesis 28, and it is a place of vision and revelation. Jacob said, “This is none other than the house of God.”
But vision is not to be enshrined. Got that? You don’t enshrine vision. Vision is to lead you further, to get you to a higher place, to get you going on and on and on—further and further into the riches of the land, which is Christ.
“Wherever you place your foot is yours.” Well, vision is to take you that next step, and that next step, and the next step. That’s what it’s all about.
But Bethel became something else. In 1 Kings 12:29, King Jeroboam set up two golden calves—one in Dan and the other in Bethel.
To settle in Bethel is to settle for a form of worship without the life of worship, or without the presence of God. “I’m not going to go to Jerusalem. I don’t need to. I’ve got the calf here. I can sit here.”
When we settle for the form without the presence, we lose the life that goes with the worship. There is no life in our worship because we’re after the form: “This is the way it’s done here, brothers and sisters. This is the way we do it every week.”
Where is the presence? Like Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 5, “You search the Scriptures, thinking that in them you have eternal life; but they point to Me, and you won’t come to Me.”
Every revival in Christianity has been because people settled for form and not presence. Every revival restores presence. With presence comes life, because we see God for Who He is.
God is a consuming fire. I think we want Him to be the gentle Jesus, but we have to realize that God is a consuming fire. Sin cannot dwell in His presence.
The gentle Jesus will lead you to the burning fire, though. That’s the wonderful thing. He’ll bring revival if you hear Him and follow Him. He’ll bring you to those places so that you never settle for the form, because you know His voice.
If we’ve settled, are we still seeking that city? Am I still seeking, or do I now know it all? Well, if you know it all, what’s the sense of going on?
Am I still seeking that city—the city of Zion? Psalm 24:3-4 says:
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who shall stand in His holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart;
Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
Those are the people who are still headed to Zion. And I know when we look at that, we say, “Well, who’s going to ascend? That certainly isn’t me.”
Sometimes I feel like the disciples when Jesus said how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The disciples said, “Who then can be saved?” That’s how I feel sometimes. I read these things and just go, “Write me off, man.”
Then the Lord comes back and answers, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” That is a great encouragement, isn’t it?
It seems unattainable to us because we don’t experientially know the grace and the power of God—the power of the blood of Christ to forgive our sins, and the power of the resurrection life of Christ in us to enable us to overcome the power of sin.
In order to ascend and continue our pilgrimage, some things have to be forsaken. You can’t live in Shechem. You can’t put your roots down there. Work is not supposed to be your god. Don’t let it be there.
You have to forsake Sodom—the things that seem right to you because they feel good. You have to forsake comfortable living as your chief goal in life.
But you do this by faith. It’s not that you try; you do this by faith. What I mean is that as God convicts you—not as I tell you that you need to do this—as God convicts you, you respond to that conviction.
Like David: “Oh my gosh, You’re talking about me.” You respond: “Oh, Lord, here it is. Here it is, all before Me.” You respond to Him when He convicts you.
Then you act out of the life of Christ in you, moving away from that place. It is the life of Christ in you that is doing this. It is not your own strength of will or character.
When you’re born again, you have the life of Christ in you. That’s a powerful life that overcame death and sin. That same life is in us. So you act out of that life, take up your tent, and move to where He shows you to move.
This is the grace of God. When He convicts you, that’s God’s grace. That’s not His condemnation; that’s His grace. “You’ve got to get out of here,” like telling Lot, “You’ve got to get out of here. I’m going to destroy this place.”
The power of God in Christ is Christ in you, moving. That’s the power of God. It’s not some explosion. It’s not some supernatural flying carpet that’s going to get you out. It’s in you—the life of Christ in you, the power of God in you to move away.
Gilgal is still supposed to have a place in our lives. We’re not to settle there, but the Israelites came back to Gilgal a number of times. Why? They came back after they had stumbled or after they had some loss, to rededicate themselves.
When they stumbled around, they returned to Gilgal and renewed their commitment. How many of us today, when we had the Lord’s table, when we were taking that bread and that cup, were telling the Lord, “Lord, I’ve had the devil’s own time this week”?
“Because I come and think of Your kindness and mercy to me, I want to renew myself with You. I want to renew my relationship with You. I want to thank You that You’ve cleared the way for me to have this relationship renewed, and I want to take You up on that.”
That’s what the Lord’s table is doing for us. Let me be renewed by it. Let me come into a stronger relationship with Him, because He’s dealt with my past. He knows about it, and He’s saying, “I’m offering this to you. Come back to Me.”
That’s what the Lord’s table is all about: “Come back to Me. Serve Me. Get right with Me. I love you. I have things meant for you that are good. Come back to Me.”
Bethel has its place too. It was once a place of vision, though it turned into a place that was not so good. But in Genesis 35, Jacob was called back to Bethel.
God said, “Get out of Shechem and come back to Bethel. Come back to where you had your first visions. Come back here and have that vision renewed.”
Bethel became a place of renewed vision. We have to come back to what we first saw in Christ and let that become our focal point again.
The first thing Jacob did in coming back was get rid of all the idols. Read that in Genesis 35. He got rid of all the idols because idols take away from your vision. They blur your vision.
If you’re living east of the Jordan, if you’re living in Sodom, or if you’re living in Shechem, your vision is marred. You don’t see clearly. The eye doesn’t see clearly unless it is single.
You have to come back to this place of vision. When Jacob came back and did away with his idols, the Lord came back to him and renewed him: “Jacob, you’re back in the right place again. I want to tell you who you are again. You’re Israel. You’re not Jacob anymore. You’re Israel.”
He renews His promises. Jacob finds God in a new way—the Shepherd of Israel, Who has been with him all the way. He sees that God is bigger than just his own life, because Joseph was out to save the world, not just to help Jacob and his family.
Bethel has a place in our lives, but vision always has to be renewed. It is not to become stagnant. It is not to become static. It is always to take another step.
Another step brings us a clearer vision. Pretty soon, we begin to see off in the distance that city we’ve been looking for. It’s still out there, and we find ourselves being drawn toward it and following after it.
It’s not just the city; it’s the One Who makes the city. Isn’t that a wonderful thing?
Even though some of these people died—and we probably can die, if the Lord doesn’t come back—following and looking for these things, isn’t it wonderful that Hebrews says the Lord looked at that and said, “He is not ashamed to call them His people”?
Look at Jacob’s life. What a mess. Yet God says, “I’m not ashamed to be called his God.” Doesn’t that give you hope?
We look at our lives and say, “Oh, that’s just not what God wanted to do.” Even when Jacob was before Pharaoh, what did he say? “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life.”
That’s how we look at ourselves before the Lord. Yet it says that if we’re pursuing—yes, we mess up, like anybody does when they pursue—but if our heart is to pursue after God, God will correct us.
God will say, “He’s pursuing. I’m not ashamed to be called his God. Yeah, I know he makes mistakes, but I’m not ashamed. Look what he’s trying. He’s looking. He wants what I have for him.”
And I’m going to give him grace—a grace that isn’t just undeserved love, but a grace that enables. Hebrews says we go to the throne of grace to receive grace for time of need. That’s wonderful.
So, brothers and sisters, the question is: Have I settled?
If I have settled, this is the question: Do you hear God calling you to pull up the stakes and saying, “Come on. You know you’re not meant to be here. Let’s get moving”?
Do you hear Him saying that? Well, if you do, then there is grace for you to pull up stakes and come after Him. Brothers and sisters, let’s do that.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You for Your kindness to us: that You will not let us just be in places that You don’t want us to be, but You’ll call us out and You’ll give us grace.
We want to thank You that You’ve called us to be pilgrims. I ask for each one of us, Lord, that You renew the vision that first called us out to You. Bring that back to our minds and back into our hearts.
May that vision be rekindled in our hearts so that we will be able to get our eyes single again and come out after You. And then, Lord, increase our vision and increase our desire.
Help us, Lord, we pray. Give us grace to pursue instead of settle. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.