The Journey part 3
God loves the number three. You see it over and over again in the Scriptures. Faith, hope, love. Righteousness, peace, joy. "The three tenses of salvation," have been saved, are being saved, will be saved. But most prophetically we see the three days' journey. Exodus 3:17-18 encapsulates it, "And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beesech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God." The difference between bondage and freedom, between slavery and rest, between life and death, was a three days' journey. This passage always confused me, because Moses bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt for good didn't seem to jive with what he was telling Pharoah--that they needed to go three days into the wilderness, sacrifice to God, and then come back? What? It wasn't until I understood the Finished Work, the death, burial, and resurrection, that I began to see what we were really talking about. Because even though the people of Israel were in natural bondage to Egypt, it was really a picture of a people who were dead in their trespasses and sins. It was really a picture of all mankind who was under the idea that they had to work for everything they could get. A people who had to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. But, again, the three days' journey changed all that. Colossians 1:13 tells us that God--in the work and person of Jesus, "...hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son." Let me say it like this: The Kingdom was a three days' journey from the world. Jesus said, "...The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again" (Luke 24:7). Jesus took the journey both for us and as us. When He was lifted up from the earth and crucified He drew us all into Himself. And when He was buried He planted Himself in us all. And when He rose again (on the third day) a new creature came forth. A new fruit, a new harvest, a New Man. And that New Man has a new life; an abundant, everlasing, eternal, Resurrection Life. So this life that we live... this life that JESUS lives in and through and as us... isn't a journey. It is the result of a journey taken over 2,000 years ago. It's not about getting anywhere. We are already in the Promised Land. It's about knowing where we are--the Kingdom--and about living in, and out of, the Kingdom. It's not about works and labour, but it's about enjoying the fruit of Jesus' labour! The journey isn't about what we do. It's about what Jesus did both for us and as us!