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Just two months before our wedding, we faced the daunting challenge of finding a home. Discouraged by the scarcity of options and tight finances, we turned to prayer and divine guidance. In a miraculous turn of events, a misplaced piece of paper led us to the perfect rental opportunity, nestled in a gated community with all we desired. This experience reaffirmed our belief in the power of divine guidance and how sometimes, what’s meant for us is just waiting to be revealed at the right moment.

Our latest episode of the Jamie Luce podcast invites you to explore the transformative power of following divine guidance in every facet of life, from family and marriage to career and spiritual growth. We delve into stories from the Bible, including the Israelites’ journey, to highlight the importance of aligning our lives with God’s commands. With Jesus’ sacrifice granting us direct access to God, embracing His guidance daily becomes a personal responsibility, not just a Sunday ritual. This partnership is like a marriage, requiring unwavering obedience and commitment to walk the path God has laid out for us.

Throughout the episode, we emphasize the necessity of cultivating a personal relationship with God by spending time in His word and living according to His covenant. We discuss the dangers of idol worship—whether it’s creating false images or idolizing cultural icons—and the significance of prioritizing God above all else. Reflecting on Moses in Exodus 33, we underline the importance of God’s presence in reaching our promised land. As we align ourselves with His will, we witness the unfolding of His promises in our lives. Stay connected for future episodes, and I encourage you to seek time with the Lord and follow His guidance as we anticipate our next meeting.

Where to dive in:

(0:00:01) – Importance of Following Divine Guidance
Following the Holy Spirit transforms every aspect of life, from family and career to spiritual growth, through partnership and trust in God’s guidance.

(0:08:50) – The Necessity of Following Divine Commands
Following God’s plan requires obedience and surrender to His lordship, with Jesus granting direct access to Him.

(0:16:55) – Cultivating a Relationship With God
Understanding the covenant relationship with God, avoiding idol worship, and prioritizing His kingdom leads to fulfillment and salvation.

(0:29:57) – Divine Guidance in Finding Home
A journey of faith and persistence led us to a perfect rental opportunity, hidden but meant for us.

(0:40:52) – Following God’s Instructions for Promised Land
Obedience to God is essential for true freedom and fulfilling His promises, as seen in Moses’ relationship with Him.

(0:54:05) – Staying in Touch for Updates
Updates on content and schedule, freeing up time for consistent blogging, new blog post release, and encouragement to seek time with the Lord.

About your host: Jaime Luce’s testimony has daunting personal mountains and treacherous financial valleys. She was trapped in day-to-day stress and couldn’t see a way forward. But how she started is not how she finished! And she wants you to know God has a plan for your life too, no matter how tough it seems. Today, Jaime has been married to the love of her life for almost three decades, owns two companies, and has become an author and podcaster. God’s way is always the blessed way!

Free chapter of Jaime’s new book: You Don’t Need Money, You Just Need God: https://jaimeluce.com/book/

Connect:

– Website: https://jaimeluce.com

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– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-luce-00395691/

Full Transcript

This transcript is auto-generated and not perfect. We hope it blesses you.

0:00:01
Hey everyone, welcome to the Jamie Luce podcast. It’s great to spend some time with you today. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think in my life that there has been a more important, powerful truth than recognizing how much I need my husband and I need as a couple, as the lead of a family. We raised four children and we now have six grandchildren, and there has been nothing that has been more impactful in our lives in every possible way than to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, whether that’s in the things that you’re attempting to do for God, for the growth of yourself, your family, your marriage, ministry, schooling, work and and career, whatever growth that you are wanting to see in your life, there really isn’t anything more important than following the leading of the Holy Spirit, having his presence to lead you. And I know, over the last several weeks, my goal in starting a new year, new season. You know making resolutions, whatever. My heart was fixed on this and I really can’t quite let it go yet. And the I want to give you some. I’ll give you some personal stories today as well, but I want you to give you a chunk of scripture that you can look at and recognize its power and potential, as well as, if it’s ignored, what the consequences will be for that. And if you are someone who says you love the Lord, you want to see God do something in your life. You want him to, whether it’s to use you in the body of Christ. We all have a place in the body, whether that’s in church ministry, whether that’s in your family, whether that’s if you consider your workplace, your ministry place, even if it’s in your own spiritual growth and wanting to know okay, what’s next, lord, what’s the next step that I need to take?

The children of Israel found themselves in a desert, escaping from a past, escaping from slavery, escaping from a culture, escaping. You can think of this in your life as whether you grew up in a situation and you have wanted to have a whole new life, different from the one you had, from the elements that you were raised up in or the circumstances that were surrounding your life. Or maybe it was bad decisions and maybe it was before you came to know the Lord, or maybe it was a time of backsliding and being away from the Lord. No matter what your situation, most of us have something in our yesterday that we would like to forget and that there’s something in front of us that is the promise of something new, something we have hope for, something that is calling us forward, something that gnaws at us if we know we’re not getting there, not accomplishing it. And it seems to happen more.

The older we get, we realize okay, I don’t have as much time as I used to have, and there’s almost some mistaken security with time. When we’re younger, we think we have all the time in the world, and yet the scripture tells us that none of us is promised our next breath. We actually don’t know that we have more time and sadly, many have had their lives cut short, whether that’s by tragedy or whether the Lord called them home for some reason. We we’ve seen many that their life or lifespan wasn’t what we expected or anticipated, and we tend to think that we’re in control of that when we really aren’t. But what we are in control of is what we do with the moments we have right now. That’s what we have control over. I have control over the plans that I control over. I have control over the plans that I’m making. I have control over that, and so I may not be able to control everything that comes my way, but I can control how I’m planning to deal with it, I can control my responses, I can control what my thoughts about those things are and then, in turn, my thoughts will produce an action in me and those actions will produce results. So I am, as my pastor likes to say, I am radically in control of my life, in control of my thoughts, in my emotions, my choices. Those are not something that someone hands to me, those are something that I choose.

And as I was reading in Numbers we’re going to be in chapter nine today I wanted to really drive home this idea of understanding that I, in order for me to prosper in the thing that I am wanting to do for the Lord even if all I’m trying to do is lay hold of whatever promises I know he has spoken to my life to call my life forward. If that is what I’m hoping for and aiming at, it is imperative that I am doing that journey to that place with him. He’s the one who knows the path. It’s like saying, hey, I’ve got great plans I’ve made for us this weekend and we’re heading to a place that you’ve never heard of before, so you’re going to need me to go with you and tell you the directions on how to get there, each place that you’re going and there’s some tricky stuff I can’t just give you the directions, because at each place there’s going to be something you may need to know or see or have information, and I need to be there to convey that information to you. So this is the way God leads us. He calls us into relationship.

I didn’t get married so that my husband and I could just say, okay, we’re going to sit down, plan out the next 30 years of our lives but then not do it together. That would make zero sense. You get married so you can do that journey together. You do that together so that you’re not alone on the journey, so that, like scripture tells us that if it’s good when two walk together, because if one falls, the other’s there to pick them up, to have a partner to do this with, to have to to. Um, even when the children of Israel were sending in the spies to spy out the promised land, they sent them in by twos.

And so there there’s a, there’s comfort and counsel and help when you have somebody with you. It’s why the enemy loves to attack us and cut us off from people and get us isolated and alone, because we’re much easier to defeat in that place, in that alone place, in that place of feeling loneliness, feeling like there’s no help. And so this understanding of the presence of God and following the leading of his presence, I want to explain that it’s not just saying I have Christ in me and so I have his presence, which we do. We have his spirit with us. But it’s one thing to have someone present and it’s another thing to then say, okay, now what’s the next step that you would like me to take? And then I take that step with you. Come with me, we’re going on a journey together, but you’re going to lead the way. If there’s a treasure chest and a treasure to be found and there’s a map, I need the person who wrote the map to show me how to get where I’m going. I need to understand what I’m seeing along the way and I want to share in that with them. I need to understand what I’m seeing along the way and I want to share in that with them. So I hope today you will let me go on this journey with you.

A little bit of explaining the power and importance, the necessity, the true, absolute necessity of doing this life of following after God’s plan for your life, in wanting to lay hold of and live in the promise of God to have your promised land. You can’t do that without him. You need him. So we’re going to talk about that today. So open up your Bibles to Numbers, chapter 9, verse 15. And we’re going to read through the rest of the chapter, which is through verse 23. And I want you to do like I always ask you and put on your you know, your studying thinking caps. I want you to go through the word with me. Don’t let me just say the words to you, but let’s listen to truly hear what the scripture is saying and see if you don’t hear this without me even beginning to explain it to you.

On the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, and at evening it was over the tabernacle like the appearance of fire until morning. So it was the cloud covered it by day and the appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent after, the presence of the Lord was always visible to the children of Israel in the form of the cloud during the day, which would descend on the tabernacle, or at night. It would look like a pillar of fire and if the cloud lifted and moved, that was their signal the presence of God is on the move and we are to go with it. So they would break camp every time the cloud moved and they would stay when the cloud stayed, regardless of the time frame, didn’t matter if it was a night, a day, in fact. We’ll read that. Let’s go on Verse 18.

At the command of the Lord, the people of Israel set out and at the command of the Lord, they camped. As long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. Even when the cloud continued over the tabernacle many days, the people of Israel kept the charge of the Lord and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud was a few days over the tabernacle and, according to the command of the Lord, they remained in camp. Then, according to the command of the Lord, they set out, and sometimes the cloud remained for evening until morning. And when the cloud lifted in the morning, they set out. And if it continued for a day and a night when the cloud lifted, they set out Whether if it continued for a day and a night, when the cloud lifted, they set out. Whether it was two days or a month or a longer time that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out. But when it lifted, they set out. At the command of the Lord, they camped and at the command of the Lord, they set out. They kept the charge of the Lord at the command of the Lord by Moses Now, I know that sounds extremely repetitive and I believe that it is totally and completely intentional by the Lord and Moses recording this for us.

It’s meant to make sure that we understand without question, without question, the job of the children of Israel was to follow every command, day and night, length of days, length of nights where the camp was, whether they moved in the morning or moved at night, they followed the command of the Lord period period. This is something that I think most Christians struggle with. I think they come to know the Lord, they want the Lord in their life, but they compartmentalize their life and they say, okay, I want God in my life, but I don’t necessarily want God Lord of my life. There’s a huge difference. Wanting God to be a part of your life is not a surrendered life. That life may look like going to church regularly, that may be, you know, being a part of your church’s home groups, connect groups, whatever you call them, having Christian friends that you do activities with. That might be the things you do because you believe that God loves you, so you do those things.

But there’s a difference between living your every day, not just your Sunday morning for an hour at church. It’s the command living by the command of the Lord. Well, what does that mean? How did they get the command? They knew to watch the presence of God for one, and at the very last thing that we read that they kept the charge of the Lord, at the command of the Lord by Moses. So they had their leader who was the mouthpiece for them, who spoke to God face to face.

Now, since Jesus has come and the veil of the temple was rent, or the curtain of the tabernacle, that we could now enter into the presence of God and meet him face to face ourselves, this responsibility now falls to us in relationship with Jesus Christ. It’s very personal, it’s not done through another individual. We may have pastors who minister to us, who are overseers over our lives, who give an account. It says that we are to be good to them so that their work is not grievous over us, that we are to understand they are accountable to God to speak truth to us, to impart the word of God to us, to bring correction to us, to speak instruction, to encourage, to lift us up, to help us to know the way that we are to go according to scripture. But, folks, the responsibility to surrender our life and to follow the commands of God is a personal one that belongs to each one of us. And each day, each day, morning and night, they were to be watching the cloud that rested over the tabernacle the presence of God. They were familiar with the presence of God. They knew what it looked like, smelled like, felt like its impact. They understood the presence of God and they knew, if the cloud lifted, it’s time for us to go and if the cloud remained, it was time for us to stay here.

This I can give you several examples of this, um that are just practically in my own life. What does this look like, jamie? What are you talking about? How do you know the presence of God? Well, first of all, you need to be cultivating your personal time with the Lord. Okay, that’s number one. Cultivate time with the Lord. The more time you spend reading his word, you’re learning about God, you’re learning of his ways, you’re learning about what’s important to him, how he expects certain things from us and we in turn expect things from him. We are in covenant relationship with him and in that covenant relationship there are terms to that covenant.

I’ve mentioned this before. It’s the same practices, kind of that you see in banking and when you have covenants in banking with businesses, it means that you agree to do certain things and if you meet those things, then the bank has to do certain things for you and if you don’t do certain things, the bank can do things against you. They are the rules for playing the game, so to speak. So we have a covenant relationship with God. He never breaks covenant. So if a covenant gets broken, we know the onus is on us. He never breaks covenant, but there are, if you break covenant. There are consequences to breaking the covenant, and it’s understanding that relationship that we are now in covenant with him.

I need to know what those things are. What are the expectations for my life? What does being a Christian look like? What does it mean for me? What am I supposed to do? What’s supposed to change in my life If I have lived a life of, you know, just outright sin and we do, whether we realize it or not, whether they are outward sins or inward sins, whether they are sins of commission that are affecting everyone around us in our life, that are obvious for people to see, or whether they are done in secret or they’re done in the heart, and they are things that no one can see or know but us. But God sees, god knows. So, whether it’s taking our life and changing behaviors, allowing the Holy Spirit to bring correction and say, hey, you need to work on this, this doesn’t look like me. Hey, you need to work on this, this doesn’t look like me. You can’t say you belong to me and that you believe in me and yet you don’t do the things that I say and that I do. We know that someone is a Christian many times by the behaviors that are Christ-like that we see in them.

This morning it was very sad to me. I was scrolling, looking for something in particular in social media, and came across a post where a pastor of a church an actual pastor of a church was literally calling his congregation who are in disagreement with the government right now, that they are saying and inciting their people to violence in the streets. I’m sorry but you can have the title pastor, but if the life you’re living and the words you’re speaking do not line up with the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are giving a false image. That is not the image of Jesus Christ. That is a false image. That’s an idol. I am making a Jesus out to be whatever. I’m creating him to be according to my likes and my distinctions. So it’s like I’m going down to the, to the idol store, and I say make me an idol and I want him to look just like this, make him look like this and like that, and this is what he likes, this is what he doesn’t like, and I’m creating that idol.

That’s not Jesus. That’s breaking the commands. That’s putting an idol before him. That’s having another God before him. That’s idol worship. I create that. That’s like when the children of Israel crafted the golden calf and said this is the one who brought you out of Egypt and helped you cross over the Jordan. A golden calf that they made with their own hands when all they had was the word of God by Moses to lead them, and the signs and the wonders that God did proved that his presence was going before them. He didn’t look like a cow, it wasn’t something made with man’s hands. I mean, that’s crazy to think that you would worship something that anybody could make with their own hands.

We have people who worship every kind of thing, whether it’s in our culture, it’s in the movie industry or in the music industry, in social media and being an influencer and wanting so many people to love and adore you. And then everybody is worshiping these idols, these people, or worshiping their gifts or worshiping their talents, and sadly, none of that, none of that is going to help you in your life, attain a godly promise over your life. None of that, only obedience to follow the cloud, to follow the presence of God. Only that will take you to the promised land. There is nothing else. If we don’t determine to make God first, make him priority, to seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness not my own of God and his righteousness not my own, then I can’t expect. The second half of that verse was which says and all of these things will be added unto me. That’s a condition, that’s a covenantal condition In order to have all of those things be okay for me and be added to me, for all those promises to become mine, my part of the covenant is to make sure that I am seeking his kingdom first. That’s the covenant relationship. So first we have to make sure that we are cultivating that relationship with him, so we know what it is, we recognize him, we recognize his presence.

I would say spend time in worship, spend time truly thinking about how awesome God is, magnify him. Think about what all he has created and what is sustained by his word and his hand. Think about salvation and how you didn’t deserve it and yet he gave it to you freely, without any cost to you. You win completely. He took the loss, he took the punishment, he took the forever damnation for you so that you could have freedom, so that you could do it, have your do-over, to be able to live this life and walk away, like I said at the beginning, from that thing that was behind you, whatever that place that you’re wanting to come out of and then get to.

The children of Israel wanted to escape forever from a controlled slavery. The life they were living was so below what God had intended for them so far below. And so what does God do? He sends a deliverer. He says I’m giving you a promise, I’m going to take you to a land that will be yours. It will be flowing with milk and honey, dripping with every good thing. Don’t we all want that? I certainly do. I certainly do. So I’ll get back to what I I didn’t say it earlier, so we’ll do it now. I want to give you some practical examples.

So what this looks like, aside from cultivating a relationship with the Lord, is, once you have been cultivating, that there comes a point in that relationship where you realize that you haven’t been asking the Lord to direct your steps. You haven’t been asking him what to do, where to go, how to get there, what to do when you get there. You know that we’ve been calling it the shots ourselves. It’s like yesterday. I’m recording this on Monday, february the 10th, I believe it is. What’s the date today? Yes, february 10th, and it won’t air today, but this is when I’m recording it. And yesterday was the Super Bowl. Okay, and you have somebody. I heard it announced we were.

I was watching and I heard it one of the announcers say that the coach for the Eagles used to love really making all the calling, all the plays for the quarterback. He liked calling the plays, but he recognized that, as the coach of the entire team, in order to properly see everything that needs to get seen and deal with the team as a whole, he could not be the one to call those plays. He knew someone else needs to be responsible for that so that he could deal with the whole. Well, that’s wisdom on being a coach for an entire team, not just being the offensive lines coach or, you know, the quarterback, or just the one who’s who’s calling the calling the plays for the quarterback. He understood, even though he enjoyed a certain thing, that a different approach needed to take place and he needed to allow someone else to do that.

So I’m trying to encourage you to help you understand that, in order for you to be able to better direct your entire life toward the goal of the promised land, you’re going to have to let God make the play calls. Okay, he knows each play that needs to take place in order to get you from point A to point B, to point C, to point D, to get you to the promised land. Okay, now, on top of him being the one to call those plays. There has to be a surrender in your life that says yes, lord, I will obey. When you say it’s time to do this, I will do it. When you say, don’t I stop, I stay right here. I don’t take, I don’t make a move until you tell me to go, I don’t make a move, I don’t do a thing until you have instructed me. Now in my life this has looked um many different ways.

So when my husband and I were planning to get married, I write about this in my book you Don’t Need Money, you Just Need God. That’s full, full, chock full of examples of how we allowed the Lord to lead us literally in providing for us financially our whole lives. The stories and they’re remarkable stories, and but one of those stories is we needed to find a place to live and we were looking for something very specific. We felt we were supposed to live in a home, but we could not afford to buy a home yet we were going to rent. We didn’t feel we should be in an apartment. We wanted to be in a home and we knew financially, according to what we had in every month, what our budget was, what the max was that we could afford. And we were looking.

When you’re all excited about getting married and you’re looking for a place to live, I don’t know about you, but we went and grabbed every single. We knew the town and the area based off of the church we were attending and the and business, where business was and the life we were living and and all of that. We knew the area we needed to be in and we went and got every magazine. It was before everybody could Google everything and there was no Zillow then. Okay, there was no Zillow. So there were all these magazines and the real estate offices would have all these different magazines or they’d be in racks at the grocery stores and it would let you know all the places that were for rent in the area and so we would go get those and we’re looking through them.

And we were so discouraged because we could not find anything available. I mean, there was nothing available. We’re like we’re gonna be married and we have no place to live. What are we gonna do? And literally this was coming down to we were getting married. There was two months that we had to find a place and we knew we needed to get in and we finally found one home that was available for rent. We went and looked at the home, liked the home. The problem was it was $250 more a month than what we could afford. We could not afford it and so we started practicing.

Lord, we know that you’ve called us together and we know that this is your will that we get married. We had already established that, but now we need to know where are you calling us to live? Where are we supposed to be? Either you need to move on the hearts of these people that and they’ll bring the price down so that we can afford to live in this home, or you’re going to have to show us something that we don’t see. We need you to help us. We don’t know what to do. We have to make a move. We’ve got to do something. So, in essence, the cloud was over the tabernacle and we’re waiting for it to move out and show us where we’re supposed to go right. So we can’t do anything until he moves, until he shows us.

So a month had gone by, we still had not found a place, and a panic for this little heart of mine, who was anxious to get married but more anxious to know where am I going to be living. That was more on my mind even than the wedding. It’s like we’ll have the wedding, but where do we go after the wedding? So we needed a place and I was a little bit panicked and we were really praying and we decided it was a Saturday and, um, we were really praying and we decided it was a Saturday, we had, um, he had. I went over to a place where he was living and we got in his car and we said, okay, we’ve got to figure this out. And we just said a real quick prayer. It’s like, lord, we need you to lead us. And we were driving through the town that his parents lived in. But it was the town that we were hoping that we could find a place to live. We wanted to be in that town.

So we’re driving down the street and we had already went into the different real estate offices. We already had talked to everybody, we already knew what was available. They had our phone numbers and we figured, okay, they’ll call us if something comes available. And I felt impressed in my spirit and I know it was the Holy Spirit and he said go back to the real estate office. And so I went. I said to my then fiance, I think we should go back. Let’s just stop by this office one more time, let’s just go back one more time. I mean it seemed redundant, honestly, but he said okay.

So we went back to this office and we walk inside and there’s a very tall, older gentleman with white hair and it’s a little office. It’s not real big, real small office it was. Um had a dark Brown kind of a color in there with some paneling on the walls and it had a large four drawer file cabinet up against the wall. And I explained to him you know we’ve been here before but we hadn’t seen him and we’d been checking all the areas. We’ve checked all the magazines, made all the phone calls, this is what we’re looking for, this is what we can afford, but we can’t find anything. And he said, okay, well, give me a minute, let me see what I can find. And he thought he had something in mind. So he went looking for it and when he began to first tell us as he was looking he was describing the home we’d already seen that was too much money. We said, yeah, we know about that one, but we can’t afford that. It’s too much, we just can’t afford that.

And as he was looking through his stuff he happened to notice a piece of paper looked like it was stuck between the wall and the fax machine and he went over and he bent down and picked it up, just to pick it up Like if it was a piece of trash and not realizing what he was doing. And as he picked it up he goes well, what’s this? And he starts reading it and he says well, I think I have something for you. It. And he says, well, I think I have something for you. And literally folks that I don’t know how long that paper had been sitting back there. But we were out of time. And I say in the book because this is what I really knew about the Lord. The Lord does the most miraculous things. But I knew that he wasn’t hiding a home from us when we were looking. He was hiding the home for us, not from us.

For us, that home had come to that office specifically for them. This wasn’t going in a publication for all the other real estate offices. This wasn’t going in a publication for all the other real estate offices. It was for that specific office, for those specific realtors, and they wanted them to put this out there and be the ones who were in control of this rental, and God had hidden that piece of paper for the day that we’d walk in that office so that nobody else would get it but us. Do you know that they wanted exactly the amount that we’d walk in that office and so that nobody else would get it but us? Do you know that they wanted exactly the amount that we could afford, exactly the amount?

The home was the perfect size. It was in a gated community of all things. I never would have thought we could have had that. It was on a cul-de-sac, which was perfect. It had a huge, beautiful backyard. It was the kind of open floor plan that I loved. Everything about this house was exactly what we were looking for. I was so thrilled we couldn’t. It was so exciting. But it was following the leading of the Holy Spirit that led us to that house and I could literally tell you story after story after story, and I could literally tell you story after story after story.

We needed to know where to attend church and it was by the leading of the Holy Spirit. God was speaking something to my husband and then he was saying something to me and what he told me was. I want you to let your husband do this. Let him lead you, let you just follow. And he had been speaking to him about where to go. Literally the very first Sunday that we went there, we knew this is exactly where we’re supposed to be Normally. That’s a really awful process. If you’ve ever been church hunting, it’s not a fun process. At least I don’t think it is. I mean, it’s wonderful to go to the different houses of God and to meet with God’s people, and that’s wonderful. But to find where you’re supposed to be planted, where you’re supposed to be, that’s not so fun. So, anyway, that was by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Folks, we need to have our lives be so focused on not going wherever we think we’re supposed to go and doing whatever we think we’re supposed to do, but it is following the presence of God. Okay, so I’ve laid out how they did it over and over and over again.

Moses is very clear in this writing to us on how they followed the leading of the Holy Spirit. But where I want us to go, because this is really important, let’s go to Exodus, chapter 33. The reason this is so important Exodus 33. And Moses understood how important this was. I mean, this was so imperative that he because, if we go back to Exodus, I’ll give you a synopsis the children of Israel had sinned. God was really upset with them. This was the whole making of the golden calf. They were doing all kinds of debauchery down at the bottom of the hill while God’s writing the commandments, literally with his own finger, for Moses. And Moses is having this wonderful time with God on the mountaintop, this communion, this face-to-face encounter. God, I want to see your glory. God, I want to know you.

Okay, this whole thing is happening here on the mountaintop and Moses is confronted with the stark reality that, even though he is wanting to follow God’s instruction, the people, the children of Israel, are not. That they are impatient, that they’re not waiting on God, that they’re rushing out to do something, because they you have to understand that their, their whole way of life for 400 years was slavery in Egypt. 400 years was slavery in Egypt. Egypt had a bazillion gods and all of these gods had forms to them. They, they, you know they were crazy. They’d have be half human and half animal and they would represent something. And you had to worship all these different gods and even though they were the children of God. They were surrounded by a culture that was continually counter to them serving one God, and not only what to do. But this is how they ended up living their life, like if you wanted your crop to grow, you would worship a certain God a certain way, and if you needed children and fertility, you worship this certain way and had this certain God. It was awful. It was completely against God’s way. But even though they were taken out of that culture, they had not yet shed the influence that that culture had had on their life, and so many Christians are like that. They come into a relationship with God, they come into the knowledge of Jesus Christ, but they’re still living in the unshed old skin of the culture that they’ve come from.

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It’s why it was so important that they had to literally get every instruction from God and do exactly what he said. It was the thing that would protect them, provide for them, keep them and take them into promise, instead of going back into an old life that leads to slavery. It seems, if you can just see that, almost like a game in front of you, a chess game in front of you, and you can see how all this works, but somehow, when it’s our life and we’re in it, we don’t see it. You can’t see the forest for the trees. You don’t realize it’s you. We struggle as humans to see our own blind spots. We need others to help us do that, and we need the protection of God over our life to keep us from those old fleshly tendencies and ways. We have been set free from them. We are freed in Jesus Christ. We are free from that sin nature, but you have to then cultivate the new life, the new way, and not go back and live the old, back and live the old.

So in exodus 33, I want to read you the first three verses. It says the lord said to moses depart, get up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land which I swore to Abraham, isaac and Jacob, saying to your offspring, I will give it. I will send an angel. I want you to listen carefully to this. I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff necked people.

So what has happened is God is so angry with the children of Israel for their, for their behavior, their actions. They have turned their back on God quickly, very quickly, in one breath. Yes, god will do whatever you say in the next breath. They are completely not doing what he says and living in rebellion, living in the lust of their flesh, living according to their own desires, their own wants, and not according to God’s. But, folks, you can’t live in the promised land without getting there with the one who made the promise. There is no other way. It is the only way. The only way to obtain the promise of God is to follow his commands, period.

Okay, so this is what god says to moses. But I want you to see moses’s response to god, because moses understood. So many will settle, so many will say okay, god, that’s fine, send an angel, just do the miracle, just give me what want, just make it happen for me. But I don’t want to have to do it, doing everything you tell me to do, the way you tell me to do it, on your time clock. I don’t want to have to walk in obedience, I just want to do my own thing. You know how many people would say yes to that. That if it wasn’t for Moses, the children of Israel would have done that, that they would have accepted an angel, an angelic being taking them in, but not Moses.

Moses, the one who spoke to God face to face Moses, who was a friend of God. Moses who understood how to lead people out of slavery into freedom. This is what he understood. If you want to leave slavery and enter into promise, live in freedom and promise, live in the goodness of God in a land that drips with milk and honey, if that’s what you want, then you need to understand how Moses thought and interacted with God and how he understood how this has to happen. So let’s go.

We’ve read verses one through three, but now let’s jump to verse 15 and 16. And he, moses, said to him God, if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here, for how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in you going with us? Moses is saying, god, if you don’t go with us, if you’re not the one who leads us in, how will anybody know how good you are and that you gave us your favor and your mercy, that we belong to you? How will it be known?

Moses wasn’t just concerned with himself living in the promised land. He was concerned about the people of God being known for being close to God and being the people of God. He cared that God’s reputation was seen through his miraculous works of favor on their life, that he got the glory for everything that happened to them and came to them. He cared about the heart of God and the people of God. Folks, we have to care about those same things. I have to care about the heart of God.

What does he want my life’s mission needs to be? How do I please you today, father? How do I accomplish today what you want accomplished today? How can I please you? Bring joy to your heart, lord, and it should also be. How does this people, the people I affect, who do I affect? I affect my husband, I affect my children. I affect the people that I do interact with daily, the people that I affect, everybody who is in my sphere of influence, whether that be at a job, at a church, in a school, wherever that may be. I have to understand that my life is about serving the Lord and loving his people. And if I can learn to do those things, and if I can learn to do those things, folks, we will be accomplishing so much. The power of God would be so quickly evident, would be so quickly evident If you need to see the evidence of God moving in your life. My challenge to you is make sure you’re not getting ahead of the cloud. Don’t lag behind the cloud. Move with the cloud. Allow the presence of God to be your direction, to be the leader. Let your relationship with the Lord and his call forward in any direction, whatever that may be, or his call to remain and stay.

Sometimes we don’t like a situation we’re in. We want to run, we want to get out. We have our fight or flight goes off. We want out and he says remain. There was a time, many years ago, when we were wanting to leave a particular church. A lot of things had happened, a lot of hurt had happened, and we were wanting to leave a particular church. A lot of things had happened, a lot of hurt had happened, and and we were wanting to leave. And do you know, for a solid year we were asking the Lord please, this is miserable. And for a year he said no, you don’t go yet, don’t leave yet. And we stayed for that year. One morning we got up it was a Sunday morning and I turned to my husband and I said we’re released. I said what he said Jamie, we’re released. In his spirit. He knew the Holy Spirit had just told him today’s the day. Today’s the day. Today we’re picking up the cloud’s moving and we followed that cloud and that cloud led us to a completely I mean our whole lives moved and changed that day. Our whole lives moved and changed that day forever. The moving of the cloud, god took us into a completely different place and season. We moved our home, we bought a business. Everything about our lives changed.

Folks, the blessing of the Lord comes from obedience, from living in his presence, from making his presence the priority, from allowing him to guide you, to lead you. He does have the promise for you. Oh, I encourage you today. He has your promised land. He does, and his plan is great. But he doesn’t want you going back into slavery and he doesn’t want you tainted with the old ways and the old cultures and the old things that held you down and kept you bound. He wants you to live in the freedom that he alone can give you. At the same time, in that relationship, he wants to take you into the promise that he has set before you.

My encouragement for you today wait for the cloud, meet with him face to face in that private place, in that holy place and, when the cloud lifts, follow when he instructs. You don’t question him. Just obey, just obey, just obey and watch the miraculous things that God will do. Watch what he will do for you. Let me pray for you, heavenly Father. We are just so grateful that you give us your presence, that we aren’t having to navigate this journey on earth alone. You gave us the Holy Spirit that we could call on your name and we would be saved, that we would know the way to go. You said you will hear a voice behind you saying this is the way walk, ye in it. Saying this is the way walk, ye in it.

God, I’m asking that today, for every person who is seeing this, hearing this, wherever they’re trying to get to, and whatever questions and answers they need, I am asking that today, as they ask you for your direction, that they will hear your voice and know the direction they are supposed to go and that they will follow your leading, even if it takes them to a great walled city like Jericho, and they think that these walls will never come down. You will give them the marching instructions to know how to march around those walls and watch them crumble before them. That they just simply walk in and take their promised land. Father, I ask that you give them courage and strength for the journey, that they will not be tempted by the call of the flesh to go back into slavery and into old ways and old habits, into old patterns and old cultures, but that today they walk forward in your strength and in your purpose. Let your purposes and plans be laid on their heart, and may they know the closeness and the personal beauty of being in your presence. Grace them with your presence today, lord. May they see your goodness, and it is in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen, amen.

Thanks so much for spending time with me today. I’d like to hear from you if you’ve got whether that’s, you know, sending me a little message here on YouTube or leaving a comment and rating for me if it’s on podcast, but you can send me an email I’d love to hear from you. I will pray for you. If you need prayer, you can do that by going to my website, jaimelucecom. That’s J-A-I-M-E-L-U-C-E. I’d love to hear from you. Also, do me a favor. If this ministered to you like this episode, share it with somebody who needs to hear it If you’d like to be notified whenever a new episode comes out, just hit that little bell, ring the bell, as they say, and get subscribed.

We’ll make sure that you know every time a new episode comes available. As well as I’m trying to get my schedule freed up some more so that I can get back to more continuous blogging, I did put out a new blog last week. If you’re interested in seeing that, you can go to the website. You can get a hold of all those blogs as well. Like I said, it was my pleasure spending some time with you today. Spend some time with the Lord, get in his presence and let him lead you. We’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.