• Egypt - The World, living to the lusts of the flesh
• Wilderness - The in-between land of testing and growth that we must pass through before we discover the rewards of Canaan. Growing in faith, small victories, yet still struggling with the desert of un-met spiritual expectations & un-achieved victories! If you don't feel like you have "arrived" yet spiritually...You are still in the Wilderness and you are NOT suppose to stay here! There is MORE and it can be gained in THIS LIFE!
• The Promised land - Our spiritual destination (not just in Heaven, but now!) Spiritual maturity and land of overflowing spiritual abundance and joy, victories, miracles, and daily answered prayer as we bring more souls into the Promise land

Most of the Christian world thinks that the "promised land" is only when we get to Heaven. But God designed and planned for us to experience it now as well! (So many verses in the Bible prove this fact!) He never intended for the Israelites to spend 40 years wandering in the wilderness, nor does He intend for us to spend our spiritual lives wandering in the wilderness. He has the promise land, flowing with vegan milk (I added that) and honey...and we are to experience that NOW!!!!!! But too often, we get stuck in the wilderness...because of our doubt, our failures, our unbelief in God and what He wants to do. We think that is where we are suppose to be...so we spiritualize our need to press further away. (After all, we have left the world...we have left Egypt behind! We are a step ahead of everyone else!) So we build sand-castles, we march around mountains, we look for quiet places of security to rest in the shade! But God is calling us to cross the Jordan...by faith to grasp for more...

But learning to deny our flesh, to get up in the morning, to have that time with him when we'd rather sleep in, to press into prayer when we least feel like it, to reach out to others when we'd rather just take care of ourselves...these are not natural tendencies. And unlike the material paycheck that you get when you work at a job in the world, there is no "instant paycheck" that God hands down to you when you spend time with Him. So we don't strive to be disciplined in the spiritual realm. We do what works, what feels good, and get by on the bare minimum. What we don't realize is that getting up in the morning to have that focused time with God, learning to spend hours on our knees interceding for others in prayer, learning to make the spiritual life just as much a discipline as a real job holds - these are MORE important than anything we can do in this world!!!!! And while these disciplines and times of denying the flesh may not give us physical money to put bread on our tables, or make us look good to others, it is spiritual money put in the Kingdom, and eternal souls of ourselves and our families hangs in the balance!! We MUST stop living in the wilderness and cross the Jordan...

But we see the large Jordan, we see the giants of the land (which are actually only Satan's enemies to try to discourage us and keep us back), and we say, "I can't do it! It's too big! I can't cross that!" God says, "I know you can't! Step forward anyway, by faith!" "But I don't have strength, I can't do it!" we cry again and again. "I know you can't, that's why you depend upon me! I will do it for you...but you must take the first step! You must step forward!!!!"

A few step forward and receive not only the wrath of the enemy, but the strength and joy of Heaven and of victory in Him! But most of us...we stay behind to protect our sand castles. We pitch our tents...and we miss the Endless frontier of the Promise Land that lies before us...