No Rabbit Trails: He's calling you deeper, deeper still

Interesting time of year. Much akin to the Christmas season with competing and confusing stories and symbols. White rabbits, colored eggs, bright bonnets, spring flowers, bitter betrayal, brutal beating, bloody cross and an emptied grave. Ah, sure....that all follows.

But even if your focus is upon the death and resurrection of Jesus - most will still miss how God is moving us in this time. For the many will remember what Jesus accomplished. Some will go further to honor that act. Yet God calls us to go deeper and engage everything He sets before us in this time frame. For to remember is linked to the past; to honor brings it into the present; but to engage connects them both and projects us forward into the Heart of God and to what happens NEXT.

The Passion of Jesus is aligned in time with two prior events: The jail break out of Egypt and the invasion into the Promised Land. This is a time to examine how any fragments of our former life 'in Egypt' AND any remnants of our current life in a Wilderness are keeping us from crossing into what He's promised.

This first feast of THE Passover Lamb is the first step in the annual growth cycle of Leave/Cleave/Become One. That first step brings the focus on 'Leave.' What needs be 'left' so you are loosed? Too often the constraint of comfort of what is will keep us from the fullness of what's to be. But comfort comes in many shapes and sizes and most are secretly seductive. It may be some "safe sin" holding us back, or but more likely, it is the let-me-stay-carefree-wandering-in-the-wilderness-I'd-rather-not-be-tied-down-or-tackle-those-giants syndrome.

The biggest part of the battle with our baggage is that we don't know we're carrying it. Like this: We remember how God worked and we think we honor Him by normalizing that way of moving for all time. ('But I don't WANT to leave the pillar of fire and the cloud...') But building such a box to hold the Lion of Judah is at best, unwise and at worst, just plain dangerous. For ultimately, God's call to leave is intimate and personal, risky and rewarding. Do so and your relationship with the King will change and deepen this year. So in this time called 'Easter' - No rabbit trails. He's calling you deeper and deeper still. Stephen Replay of this Deck teaching, click here. PS: Please remember Abigail and her team in Cuba. They're doing well but the risk is real. (Back in country on Tuesday.)