Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted of the devil. If Jesus would have resisted the desert experience, he would have never been able to conquer and have experienced the anointing in the most demonstrative way.

What is the Desert?

It is very important for us to understand what the desert is in order for us to understand the glory it produces.

The desert is:

1. a place of misunderstanding
2. a place of lonliness
3. a place of abandonment of self
4. a place of power
5. a place of learning
6. a place of solitude

Alot of people misunderstand us when we are going through the valley of the shadow of death. This causes a lonliness to come inside of our hearts and can make life difficult to handle. The desert is a personal experience that only you are able to go through alone.

The desert is a place where we have a choice to make. It is a place where we must choose to abandon self at all costs with it’s selfish ambitions. This sounds so negative yet it is the most powerful thing that we can be a part of. We die in the desert so that Christ can be revealed in us through the presence of sufferings.

The desert becomes a place of power when we allow the Holy Spirit to take control of our lives. It isn’t until we experience these dry times that we understand to the fullest degree what we have learned through the passage of time. It’s the place where we see the provision of God like He provided for Israel. God provided manna, water from a rock, quail and clothing and shoes.

How did these things come? As we press into God, He’ll provide.

• Manna - revelation - Exodus 16:15, Deuteronomy 8:3, Joshua 5:12- ramah word - Revelation 2:7
• Water from the Rock - refreshing, renewal - Exodus 17:6 Numbers 20:8-11
• Quail - tangible (prophetic) words - Exodus 16:13, Numbers 11:31
• Clothing and shoes - righteousness and peace - Deuteronomy 29:8

We would think that we would be content with God after providing all this for us yet this is not always the case. We complain and murmur. We are not always satisified with everything that happens to us.

We must learn this lesson - don’t complain and murmur in the desert. This is hard not ot do but we always have the choice to not speak negatively.

Don’t whine about your hand of cards because sometimes during the game of life there will come a time to play them. God wants us to grow up in Him and act our age.

We must not complain about our lot in life. Yes, there’s a desert but just beyond the desert there is always a promiseland.

If we complain about our desert, we will find that it takes twice as long to get through the experience. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be there any longer than necessary.

We must not get hasty in our desert experience because out of haste, disobedience can be found knocking at the door. - Deuteronomy 32:52

Be aware of this: Self-pity will try to clench our mind. No one likes to be around someone who moans and groans about themselves all of the time. Self-pity is easy to detect in anyone else but it is more difficult to put our finger on it in our own lives.

The promiseland becomes a mission field. We can never enter into that mission field if not educated because we will not know how to manage the resources of the mission field.

There are resources found in the desert. The resource is Christ, the anointing. The resources are God’s: grace, love, mercy, awesome power. Each are there to be used and to learn from.

The desert is like fertilizer - it stinks but helps us grow!!

The desert is a place where change is born. We will be renewed and lose our rough edges as they will be sanded down with the sandpaper of the Holy Spirit.

The desert is a springboard into the promiseland. We need to love the desert. We also need to remember that we will only be there for a short period of time. We need to enjoy all we can so we can have some stories to tell.

We need to find the balance inbetween not being satisified with the desert and being satisified and not moving on! We must not be in a hurry but we also must not miss the beauty of the journey.