Known for his vibrant teaching skills and passion for communicating the Scriptures in a clear and relevant way, Jeff Manion has served as teaching pastor of Ada Bible Church in West Michigan for more than 25 years. His church of 6,000 attendees was named by Outreachmagazine as one of America’s largest and fastest growing churches in 2009. Using video venues and two offsite campuses, they strive to create a small church feeling within a large church setting. Invited to the Summit after Bill Hybels heard a taped message he gave on The Land Between, Manion will share biblical insights on how to avoid pitfalls that can easily entrap those who are living in a time of transition.
- We have a gracious God who redeems all things.
- We need to open our hands that have been holding on to things to receive what He has for us.
The Land Between
- “For now” is the language of the Land Between.
- Many of us find ourselves in the Land Between today.
- Discouragement, depression… we don’t know how we got there and don’t know how to get out of it.
- Prayer doesn’t seem to be working.
- If you want to find yourself in the Land Between, you are in the desert.
- The original “Land Between” was the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land.
- God called Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery and into the land of promise. (Exodus 3)
- Egypt was the land of slavery. Things flourished and grew there because of the Nile.
- The Israelites were slaves there.
- The Promised Land, Canaan, was flowing with milk and honey.
- They were in the Land Between.
- How did they eat in the brown space? God provided manna.
- Manna means “what is it?”
- Manna was substance God provided for them in the Land Between.
- You might think not much can grow in the desert but the Land Between is fertile ground.
Complaints
- The Land Between is fertile soil for complaints.
- The Israelites complained about the manna (Numbers 11)
- Have you eaten the same meal over and over and over again?
- Instead of putting ourselves above the characters in these stories, it is healthier to see ourselves among them.
- They weren’t complaining about their position, they were complaining against God.
- They said, “We were better off as slaves, we were better off without you.”
- Guard your heart in the Land Between.
- It’s easy to want to write off God and complain.
- How is God going to meet His servant Moses?
- Moses didn’t want the job from the beginning.
- Numbers 11:11-14, “the burden is too heavy for me.”
Emotional Meltdown
- The Land Between is fertile ground for emotional meltdown.
- Numbers 11:15 “God, if you love me, kill me now.”
- Moses crashed.
- Who’s voice do you hear other than the voice of Moses in this interaction?
- Have you ever been at a place where you’ve said, “God I can’t carry this anymore!”
- Anyone in a leadership capacity will get to this point.
- When you throw yourself into any form of spiritual leadership, you will have moments where you come to the end of yourself.
- Who’s voice will you listen to in those moments?
God’s Response: Provision
- Maybe the way God moves towards Moses is the way He moves towards us.
- verse 16 – God asked Moses to bring 70 of Israel’s elders to the tent of the meeting.
- “They will help you carry the burden of the people so you won’t have to carry it alone.”
- The tent is where people went to meet with God.
- The Land Between is fertile ground of God’s provision.
- God is good and gracious and wants to provide for us.
- God loves to provide; it’s what He does.
- What if, instead of holding on, we open our hands to release and leave them open to receive whatever God would provide for us?
- His provision could come in many different shapes or forms.
- Numbers 11:23, “is the Lord’s arm too short?”
- Do we doubt God’s character or His competency?
- Is God too weak to intervene?
God’s Discipline
- The Land Between is also fertile ground for God’s discipline.
- God sent a plague and killed them!
- We respect loving parents who bring timely and appropriate discipline to their children.
- Discipline is inflicting pain for a redemptive purpose.
- Discipline is pain inflicted to provide rescue.
- We are naive to think we are immune to God’s corrective hand.
- When we embrace a spirit of complaint it’s fertile ground for God’s discipline.
Our Response
- The Land Between is fertile ground for transformational growth.
- It will be the place where we can learn to trust in God the most.
- The Israelites were not a well-ordered, disciplined group of Christ-followers.
- They were ex-slaves indoctrinated in idolatry.
- They were not ready, they were not the people of God yet.
- The Land Between was intended to transform them from being slaves to being the people of God.
- It is in this space that we learn to pray.
- Growth will not happen automatically.
- We say “time heals all wounds” but this is not true.
- Some people get bitter, angry, and toxic over time.
- Our heart is in danger in the Land Between.
- Choices of the heart have to be made that will determine who we are in the future.
- The wilderness is the best greenhouse for transformational growth or the place where our faith can die.
- Complaint arrives as an uninvited guest.
- Good movement pushes out bad movement; bad movement pushes out good movement.
- Trust expels complaint.
- Trust evicts complaint… they are incompatible roommates.
- The space in your life that you most resent is the very soil where God wants to produce the crop we so desperately desire.
- The land between, the space we hate, is where God does His richest and deepest work
May God bless you in the Land Between. May you guard your heart. May trust grow. May our gracious God who knows what we need provides it when we need it… may He restore our laughter, increase our joy and may we find Him present and good in the Land Between.
Download a free chapter from Jeff’s book “The Land Between” here.
