Set Apart

When I started The Imperfect Sojourner Blog in December 2018 I opened with a Welcome Post  which outlined why I named it The Imperfect Sojourner  and what my aim was in writing over the coming months...

In that post I wrote the following;

"How we sojourn is important. For the Christ follower we are to be made in to His likeness. I have concluded that above all our other achievements this is key  - though our 'doing' is important... our 'being' and the place from which we do is the critical backbone. 

You can do all the right things and still miss it! 

 The pharisees are a good example of this!

He wants us to know His heart and His Plans and to become in His likeness! 

However, possibly like many of you, I have struggled to become all He has for me in this regard due to not feeling worthy to receive at a deeply personal level; unable to deal with my own flaws... not getting freedom right to the core of who I am because I was hiding!" 

This is where The Lord has been working in me in this season. I am only in the beginning of walking it out as He is revealing the tools to do so.

Hebrews 4:12
See, the Word of God is alive! It is at work and is sharper than any double-edged sword — it cuts right through to where soul meets spirit and joints meet marrow, and it is quick to judge the inner reflections and attitudes of the heart.

Each time I have read straight through The Word fast the sword gets to work before my brain even catches up at times- The Spirit starts stirring! I have felt the Holy Spirit highlight certain threads each time - exactly where the attitudes of my heart need confronting and I follow them as I know that's what The Lord would speak to me at this time.

So one of those threads highlighted for me to follow this time through the 6 Months reading plan was earlier in this process in January/February when reading about the Israelite's as they prepared to enter and indeed entered the promised land.

Deuteronomy 7 “Adonai your God is going to bring you into the land you will enter in order to take possession of it, and he will expel many nations ahead of you —

 the Hitti, Girgashi, Emori, Kena‘ani, P’rizi, Hivi and Y’vusi, 

seven nations bigger and stronger than you.

  ² When he does this, when Adonai your God hands them over ahead of you, and you defeat them, you are to destroy them completely! 

Do not make any covenant with them. Show them no mercy. 

  ³  Don’t intermarry with them — don’t give your daughter to his son, and don’t 

take his daughter for your son. 

  ⁴ For he will turn your children away from following me in order to serve other gods. If this happens, the anger of Adonai will flare up against you, and he will quickly destroy you. 

  ⁵ No, treat them this way: break down their altars, smash their standing-stones to pieces, 

cut down their sacred poles and burn up their carved images completely.

  ⁶ For you are a people set apart as holy for Adonai your God.  

Adonai your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth 

to be his own unique treasure. (emphasis mine)

"Destroy them completely!"... "Show them no mercy!" ... "Don't intermarry!"...

"Set apart as holy!"

We see time after time the Israelite's do not follow this command fully and there are consequences.
The effect of this compromise comes up through the books following. They open themselves up for the influence of the pagan nations by not destroying them fully, and the mixture that ultimately follows is a factor in them repeatedly turning their back on God. Mixture.

The complete clearing of the land is vital, naturally, to the setting apart as Holy for God.
For the Israelite's just as it is for us He HAS already set us apart and called us His own... but then there is a committing to that and a walking it out as He directs which removes compromise and hindrance so we can walk in the fullness of His promises and receive His blessings.

These nations are hindrances to what The Lord wanted for His people and I began to wonder if I was personally walking in to a figurative land the Lord wanted to give me and I had not or was not destroying completely things that would pull me back down and disrupt true inheritance of the land in full liberty... "Father show me where I am being disobedient and soft with regard to this!"

It begins to sound like that quote above from my opening blog post...

"not getting freedom right to the core"

Hmmm .... things in the way of receiving the fullness of freedom to my core... there are parallels!

Being saved and even having an active walk with The Lord doesn't automatically mean we are walking in all His fullness - it is all available to us but needs to be received.
An example: I can be in possession of 1,000,000 euro in a gift wrapped box I received but it is no use to me if I don't open it, take hold of it and use it - but it is no less mine.

Alongside this reading and stirring I was having a major low in myself. I've been here before... depression, low feelings , anger, self hatred... deep feelings of "I try so hard to receive all The Lord has for me but it's like I'm fatally flawed!"

I wondered..."How can I feel so alive in the Word and so stirred in my heart with the things of God and have this other side of the coin happening also?" I wrestled in prayer. 

I cried out so much "HEAL ME GOD!! ONCE AND FOR ALL! 

OR JUST LET IT ALL BE OVER NOW!"

Such a low point! However, sometimes things need to be shaken or even fall apart in order to be corrected or rebuilt.

 

I realized I was hitting a wall because there were deeper even unseen things at work in me. Which he began to highlight over a series of events and encounters, words, ministry times, and time in prayer (here's where the importance of 'others' really comes in! - more on that next post).

 

He was highlighting the tools or 'keys' that I feel are for this season. These 'keys' are to do with the purging of the 'land', the deep healing of the person, the setting apart for God and the preparation to be able to receive more of the things of The Lord and be released in to new levels of gifting He has given each one of us .

So, I have been looking into and walking through the areas of repentance, the healing of soul wounds, generational curses(clearing the land) and declaring biblical decrees(receiving) to build my faith. This is a journey I will I'm sure share more details on over the coming months but for now I'm following that thread, that dangling string that started appearing back in the reading of those scriptures in our early reading and I'm learning as He walks me through these different elements.

It's exciting because I've seen freedom in areas already and I have been challenged to really take hold

of His promises deeply, personally, which I haven't always been very good at doing!  

My very identity needing to be rooted in Him and how He views me in greater measures than before. 

 

I struggle with this. Still... but I'm working on it... and I'm letting Him work on me...

 

The other day as I wrestled with some old stubborn self-opinions that conflict with how He sees me and the value He has placed on me - I felt Him whisper to me about my name.  He reminded me that He named me Lisa and He asked me what my name means... I know the meaning so I immediately answered "consecrated to God"... I  felt His knowing smile... another confirmation of what He's doing in me right now. Another word for consecrate is SET APART.

I encourage you to hear that voice of the Good Shepherd and see what dangling string is in front of you and obediently follow after it and seek out what it is about, it's like playing pass the parcel you just peel a layer off every time it comes around! ha!!

 

Enjoy your journey! I would love to hear about what He has been whispering to you!

 

 

 

Continuing to sojourn imperfectly but hungrily through this season... 

Lisa x