Answering The Call: Part 3 — Desert Crossroads

“Stand at the Crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16

Within the wilderness, The LORD creates paths for us. At some point on these paths, He will divinely lead us to places of Crossroads.

Congratulations. Sincerely. This means you have walked far enough in the wilderness with Him that His Spirit has prepared and equipped you for your second Crossroad (the first was actually saying “yes” to entering the wilderness with Him).

We will look at:

• What is a Crossroad?
• What is the purpose?
• Repeated Crossroads explained

What is a Crossroad?

Simply put, The LORD will lead us to a place where we will be faced with a decision.

We will have the opportunity to tear down an area of lies and carnal-minded beliefs and replace them with the truths of God’s Word in an area of our thinking. (2 Corinthians 10:5, Proverbs 23:7, Galatians 6:8, Hebrews 12:11)

Said another way:

“Crossroads” are decisions, and those decisions come down to the motives of our heart. Motives stem from beliefs.

It is our belief system that our Lord is after.

Remember our thinking will directly affect our walk. We worship and commune only to the degree we are walking in His truth. (John 4:24, 1 Corinthians 2:10-16, 13:8)

Again. A Crossroad is a decision.

We choose to relate to The LORD, ourselves and others either through the dead, carnal minded man, or the mind of Christ which is in alignment with the Word of God.

Which path will we choose?

We don’t find these paths. They come upon u s. As we spend time with our Lord, quietly drawing to Him and enjoying the season of aloneness with our Dad, Savior and Comforter, God Himself leads us down a journey with Him that will eventually have a fork in the road.

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them…” Isaiah 42:16

These new intersections are most often come upon through the reality of a trial.

Trials are the doorways to Crossroads.

What is the purpose of Crossroads?

The purpose of the Crossroad is to release the power of the Resurrected life within us in the arena that that particular trial is meant to bring into the light.

This is true rest. It is His Sabbath rest manifest within us. It is to enter us into deeper communion. Let’s look at the second half of Isaiah 42:16

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do…” Isaiah 42:16

Did we catch that? Our Lord Himself will sovereignly walk us down unknown paths that will remove our spiritual blindness and ignorance of His nature and kingdom.

Jesus Christ is the source of all Light. It is through the continual greater revelation of Him that enters us into continual deeper fellowship. This is where trials come in to play.

A “trial” may be defined a couple of ways, but is basically any event that brings our belief system to the forefront.

It either brings to the surface a way of thinking that is contrary to the word of God, or makes it challenging to stand on our Godly beliefs (which in reality is exposing a more hidden area of personal false thinking).

It is most often through such calamity, uncertainty, unknowing, or fearful expectation of what might occur, that The LORD shows up and says: “David, will you look at these pains, fears and hurts squarely in the face with Me?

Will you walk down this path with Me and trust Me to reveal to you a part of who I AM you do not yet truly know?”

Trials are not about what we decide. It is about what motivates our decision. The Crossroad path is not about us being provided for, cared for, protected or vindicated.

No. Not at all. The Crossroad is about being willing to be crucified. No compromise. No conditions. No terms of surrender. No quarter asked…and none given.

The Crossroad is about only one thing: Resurrected life.

The method is also about only one thing: dying.

Positionally, we already died to the carnal man (see related study “We Died to the Carnal Man”).

Relationally however, is another story.

This is where our decisions come into play, and whether our soul chooses to pick up the life and mind of Christ within our spirit man, or continue to carry around a corpse and stubbornly refuse to renew our minds.

As painful as this may be, the answer always comes down to a decision. Ergo, the need for Crossroads.

On every one of these pathways, when we practice this blind obedience to choose Him, we relationally enter into His death and burial.

We move from positional partakers of His righteousness to experientially partaking of the crucifixion, tomb, and resurrection life of Jesus Christ.

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:24

“Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:11

Resurrected life is what will result in every area that we chose to reckon the carnal man as dead

AND

choose to pick up the life of Christ.

These Crossroads are not orchestrated by the enemy! These are hand picked by our Heavenly Dad!

Far too many erroneous teachings on “trials” has surfaced as a result of lopsided American church theology.

If we study the lives of those who walked in deep union with God, it was The LORD who was most often created the Crossroad trials. The same holds true today.

“Some time later God tested Abraham…” Genesis 22:1

“Then The LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions or no..” Exodus 16:4

“I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died: That through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of The LORD to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not.” Judges 2:21-22

The Crossroads are designed to shake us free from our carnal-minded thinking, and are invitations to enter us into deeper union with Him.

Only obedience allows us to partake of this new aspect of Him He is desiring to impart to us.

Each Crossroads is designed to take us to greater rivers of His life. This comes down to the decisions we make in our heart… not our hands. It is our heart, our will, that decides which path we take.

“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” Deuteronomy 30:19

“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of The LORD is near in the valley of decision.” Joel 3:14

The only way we can become familiar with His ways and His paths and His nature is to reject the thinking and lies we have clung to as truth.

This is the carnal-minded man that scriptures tell us we actually already died to when the Spirit of the living God entered into our spirit at salvation. (Romans 6:2-4,8:6-9, 2 Corinthians 5:16, Ephesians 1:14, 2 Corinthians 1:22)

This only comes by putting into practice 2 Corinthians 10:5

“We tear down arguments, and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5

This is truly learned in the desert. If…. we allow it. It is vital to understand the heart of our Father is reconciliation and intimacy.

Mankind’s first Crossroad took place ironically enough, not in a desert, but in Paradise. A desert wasteland, much more than simply physical, but also spiritual, emotional and relational resulted from the decision that was chosen at that Crossroad.

Death was sowed. Alienation in our spirit and also in our thinking resulted. It is now in those very places of our heart, that we once again are faced with the choice of either Life… or death.

We get to say “yes” to His heart and despise the shame of the world and its satanic, false belief system.

Know this: The LORD will never allow us to face a decision where we are not capable of choosing life. He leads us slowly and methodically, through the desert paths and into His resurrected life with and in Him.

“When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” Exodus 13:17

He is our great Shepherd. The purpose of every trial is to allow us, by the grace available to us through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit within our spirit man, to choose life.

He knows what we can handle, and when we can handle it. He refines us into His image and His nature.

The purpose of this is communion and greater intimacy. He loves His children. He loves you.

Repeated Crossroads Explained

Ever wonder why it seems at times you have gone through repeated experiences where, though the situation may be different, the same fears always seem to arise? The same pain or shame or hurt?

A glimpse of the reason may be found here:

“Not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times- not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.” Numbers 14:23

“where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did.” Psalm 95:9

When we chose to reject the word of The LORD for ourselves, and instead continue to relate to Him in the same manner as we did before the trial, we are in essence contending with the Word of God, and rejecting His invitation to come deeper.

Additionally, whether we care to admit it or not, we are saying we will choose to relate to God, ourselves, and others according the god of this world’s thinking.

Any area we choose to reject God’s word for our walk means we are in unbelief, and to that degree, rebellion. (2 Corinthians 4:4, Matthew 13:18, James 1:6-8, 2:14, Galatians 6:8)

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21

He is always there. The Spirit of The LORD is inside us. When we go through a trial, the Word tells us that our LORD will always be faithful. In that faithfulness and in that fiery challenge we will hear The Holy Spirit calling to us “this is the path of life. Walk in it.”

This decision of choice is now our Crossroad. What I find amazing in the scriptures is that God never stops attempting to draw us out of our dead thinking and relating. He will always look to break through.

He will… In His immense love… repeat the scenario in some form or another in order to bring us back to the valley of decision… to that same Crossroad.

Just read through the book of Judges. Read Kings and Chronicles and you will see this theme repeated endlessly.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. ” Jeremiah 31:3

Our Dad, in His love, will never stop orchestrating events in order to give us yet another opportunity to choose the path of life.

The Crossroads lead to the thorough separation of that dead, carnal mind, so that the resurrected life may be lived out relationally with Him.

He will never cease to draw us, call to us, or cease in His everlasting and unfailing love, to try to set us free.

“Stand at the Crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16

I just love this verse… so I am going to close with it as we opened with it.

Every decision we make to pick up His life, His truth, His Word, His promise, His nature, His holiness, His heart… whatever that particular Crossroad path is… know this: the other path is death.

We either sow to death.. or we die to it, so that Christ might reign within us and through us and above all… commune with those He died for.

The Ancient Paths will be brought to you. The word of God assures us of this. Walk in the “good way.”

Enjoy His rest. Seek deep intimacy. This is what He longs for.

He is worthy of having all our heart anyway…

From Call to Commission — All parts:

Answering The Call: From Call to Commission — Introduction

Answering The Call: Part 1 — Coming Out Of Egypt

Answering The Call: Part 2 — Life in the Desert

Answering The Call: Part 3 — Desert Crossroads

Answering The Call: Part 4 — Returning to Civilization

 

Shalom
~ David Murry

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David Murry ~ One of the ways Father God has asked David to serve the Body is in sharing the amazing truths about what it means to have been made the Righteousness of Christ, and applying that truth to how we view God, ourselves and others. Restoration of the Body back to the heart and nature of the Ancient of Days (who just happens to be our Dad) starts with understanding what truly occurred at the cross on our behalf. It is an honor and joy for David to help the body return to the heart of our Father… in all our ways.
Contact David at: dwmurry.com or email him at: dwmurry@gmail.com

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