“ANOINTED BOUNDARIES” BY RANDALL J. BREWER Sometimes the devil gets it right. In a conversation with God about Job he made this true statement, “Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land” (Job 1:10). What the devil was referring to is also described in the 23rd psalm. After proclaiming that the Lord was his shepherd David wrote in vs. 5, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.” In Biblical times a shepherd would lead his flock to a field of grass. He would then pour a special oil around the feeding place and this would prevent the serpents from coming in to attack the sheep. The sheep would be led inside this boundary and eat to their hearts’ content. That oil, which is symbolic of the anointing, had become the hedge of protection that circled the herd of sheep. The master shepherd prepared a table for his flock in the presence of their enemies. The good life is when you also have a hedge of protection round about you. The good shepherd provided his sheep with a luscious feeding ground and they ate the good of the land as the hungry serpents were on the outside looking in. The sheep were willing to follow the voice of their master and were obedient to stay within the hedge of protection that was set for them. If one of those sheep wandered outside the hedge of protection, if they went off and did their own thing, they would be exposed and subject to the lethal appetites of those hungry serpents. Likewise, we must follow the leading of the Good Shepherd and go where He tells us to go and stay where He tells us to stay. This is serious business. Consider Ps. 80:12,13, “Why have You broken down her hedges so that all who pass by pluck her fruit? The boar out of the woods uproots it, and the wild beast of the field devours it.” Also, we read in Ps. 89:40,41, “You have broken down all the hedges; You have brought his strongholds to ruin. All who pass by the way plunders him; He is a reproach to his neighbors.” In the parable of the vineyard Isaiah wrote in Is. 5:4b,5, “Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? And now, please let me tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away its’ hedge, and it shall be burned; and break down its’ wall, and it shall be trampled down.” God has predetermined a plan for your life. 1 Cor. 12: 18 says, “But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.” Don’t go off and start doing your own thing. You’ll step into darkness if you do. You’ll trip and fall in the darkness that will consume your life. You’ll be confused and if you can’t see where you’re going you’ll have no direction for your life. Life will be hard and frustrating and you’ll have no satisfaction or fruitfulness. Prov. 4:18,19 says, “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.” God can not and will not put His full measure of blessings and protection on your plan if it’s different from His. Millions of people are doing their own thing and as a result of this disobedience they are unhappy and unfulfilled. People need to understand that the good life only comes when you step into that specific plan that God prepared beforehand for your life. The Amplified translation of Eph. 2:10 says, “God predestined, planned beforehand for us, taking the paths that He prepared ahead of time, that we should walk in them, living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live.” Parents should never tell their children, “You can be anything you want to be.” They mean well when they say this but if Jesus is your Lord then it’s not up to you to decide what you will be and what you will do. It’s already been decided for you and it’s up to you to discover by His grace what you’ve been foreordained and predestined to become and do. That’s the good life. Included in God’s plan for your life is a God-ordained place where you are supposed to be. Paul says this about God in Acts 17:26, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.” Consider also 2 Sam. 7:10 where God said, “Moreover I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore as previously.” Just like those shepherd-led sheep, if the people of Israel stayed within their anointed boundaries the hungry serpents, the sons of wickedness, could not come in and destroy their lives. There is a place for everyone and to live the good life everyone must be in their place. Provision and protection come to you when you are in your proper, predesigned place. If God tells you to go minister in some mosquito-infested swampland then don’t go to some nice tropical island and try to serve God there. No, go where God tells you to go and stay where He tells you to stay. If you get out of your place judgment and destruction will come. Jude 6 says, “And the angels who did not keep their proper place, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” These angels left the place God gave them and paid a heavy price for doing so. Yes, getting out of your place has serious consequences. Jesus once told His followers to “look at the birds in the air” and to “consider the lilies of the field” (Matt. 6:26,28). There is a place where those birds and flowers are supposed to be and in order to flourish they must be in their proper place. Orange trees don’t grow in cold temperatures and a whale can’t live on dry ground. A cactus flourishes in desert conditions and an elephant don’t swim in the ocean. Nobody ever saw a kangaroo romping alongside a polar bear in the Artic cold or penguins galloping with the wild horses in Montana. Do camels swim with Alaskan trout or do zebras soar with the eagles? No, there are boundaries where each of them belong and so it is with us. Even the planet earth is in it’s proper place. If it was one mile closer to the sun it would burn up and if it was one mile further away it would freeze over. The whole universe testifies that it is important to be in your proper place. If you run away from the place you are supposed to be like Jonah did you will be vulnerable to destruction. It is dangerous and sometimes deadly to be out of your place. Like a roaring lion Satan is forever roaming the earth seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). An easy target for that hungry serpent are those who have drifted out beyond their anointed boundaries, people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Bible is filled with stories of many such people, those who were not where they were supposed to be. When Lot left the side of Abraham and moved to Sodom he was in the wrong place. Sodom was an evil city and eventually Lot lost everything he owned, his wife died, and he just barely escaped with his own life. When the children of Israel refused to enter into the promised land but instead wandered around in the wilderness for forty years they, too, were not in their proper place. When the prodigal son was eating food fed to the pigs he was most definitely in the wrong place. All these people were not in the place they were supposed to be and all of them paid a heavy price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is no better example of this than the time when one evening David walked out onto his balcony and saw Bathsheba taking a bath. It was a time of war and he should have been out on the battlefield with his men. Instead he wandered outside his anointed boundary, he stayed home, and eventually the serpents of lust and murder filled his life with their deadly venom. This one act of disobedience has forever tarnished the legacy of this great king who the Bible describes as “a man after God’s own heart.” Months later when the baby born through his union with Bathsheba died David learned all too well that the safest place on earth was within the anointed boundaries that surround the place where you are supposed to be. David learned the hard way that the biggest enemy to God’s plan is your plan. Job was a man who went through a series of harsh trials but look what he said in Job 13:15, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend (maintain) my own ways before Him.” Job was a righteous man who trusted God but when the trials came he began to complain and grow self-righteous. Job 3:25 says, “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me.” This verse tells us that Job was in fear and dread before the trials came. So how did the fear get in? If you go off and do your own thing, if you hold on to your plan and maintain your own ways, you can’t keep the fear out because your heart knows you’ve chosen your own way instead of God’s. You know on the inside that you’re out of your place. We read in Prov. 1: 30-32, “They would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies. For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.” The safest place on the planet is the place of God’s perfect will for your life. Prov. 1:33 says, “But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.” Even Jesus said in John 10:27,28, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I will give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” Obedience has many benefits and God’s protection is one of them. When you go where God tells you to go and stay where God tells you to stay you will be in the cocoon of divine protection. The good life is to obey God at all costs and that includes being in your proper place. There is a location where you will develop and increase and be a blessing like you can in no other place. It’s the place that God has predetermined for you before you were even born so stay where you’re planted and reap the benefits. Don’t be like the prodigal son and go off and do your own thing. God can not and will not bless rebellion, defiance, and disobedience. Luke 17:33a says, “Whoever seeks to save his life (to do his own thing) will lose it.” In order to eat the good of the land you must be willing and obedient to do the will of God. You must go where He tells you to go and stay where He tells you to stay. The plan of God is exciting and there is a place where the enemy touches you not. To live the good life you must seek for and find that place where you are supposed to be. Ps. 66:12 says, “You have caused men to ride over our heads; We went through fire and water; But You brought us out to a wealthy place.” God has a wealthy place for you, a place of rich fulfillment, and it is found within the anointed boundaries that surround your life. Sad to say, many believers are not in this place. Instead, they’re in a place of lack and defeat, a place of inability, a place where there is no victory in their lives. Everybody has a place to serve but most people aren’t doing it. It hurts the whole church when people are not in their proper place. Millions of born again believers are off doing their own thing and are doing nothing at all for the kingdom of God. They don’t even go to church let alone serve. God, however, wants you in a specific place so that His grace will allow your full potential to shine forth brighter and brighter. With God’s grace you can become more than you ever thought you could become and do more than you ever thought you could do. All people have potential for greatness. Just having potential, however, is not enough unless you are willing to take a risk, to step out of your comfort zone, and let God do a work in your life. Having potential does not mean that what you set out to do is positively going to happen. It means that it can happen if you are in your proper place. Encourage yourself knowing that the place God has for you is a well-watered, well-filled place and you should seek for this place with all that is within you. Ps. 37:23a says, “The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord” and those steps will lead you to your wealthy place. That place is calling out to you, trying to draw you in. Every fall geese fly hundreds of miles southward to warmer climates. How do they know where to fly? The place is calling out to them. Salmon swim upstream and go against the flow, even to the point of jumping over waterfalls, to get to the place they are supposed to be. They don’t think, plan, or reason. They just go. They don’t stop and hesitate trying to figure it all out. They just follow the call and go. You must do likewise. Heb. 11:8 tells us, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place that he would afterward receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” Abraham was convinced that God would direct his steps. In 1 Kings 17 Elijah prophecied that a drought would come upon the land and we read in vs. 2-4, “Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” You can count on God to lead you to your rightful place and, if by chance you miss Him, He’ll find you in you will remain forever faithful and don’t lose faith. Elijah received divine direction again in vs. 7-9, “And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.’” Once again he was told by God precisely where he was supposed to go. Had he gone anywhere else he would have not received the provision that God had graciously prepared for him beforehand. Likewise, God is calling out to His people (1 Thess. 5:12) and they need to obey His voice and respond to that call. In John 11:28 we read where Martha told her sister Mary, “The Teacher has come and is calling for you.” He Who calls you is faithful (1 Thess. 5:24) and you can Trust Him to lead you and guide you to your predetermined place. The wise men were led to the infant Jesus and shortly thereafter Joseph was led to take the Child and mother to Egypt to escape those who would try to take His life. Consider also that God once called a ram to be in a specific place so Abraham could offer it up as a sacrifice to the Lord in place of his son Isaac. If a ram can respond to the calling of God can you not much more do so? There is a place where you will excel and prosper like no other but this is no guarantee that your circumstances will always be nice and comfortable. Consider Gen. 26: 1-3a, “There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, in Gerar. Then the Lord appeared to him and said: ‘Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I will be with you and bless you…’” There was a famine in the land, life was definitely not comfortable, but Gerar was the predetermined place where Isaac was supposed to be. He sowed in that place and reaped in the same year a hundredfold and became very prosperous (vs. 12-14). God will bless and comfort you if you will go where He tells you to go and stay where He tells you to stay. 2 Cor. 1:3,4a says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation…” Elisha was called to stand beside Elijah the prophet and this was not an easy task because his mentor was not always an easy man to get along with. Elisha, however, walked in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:31) and faithfully remained in the place he was supposed to be. His reward for doing so is that he received double the spirit that was on Elijah when he witnessed the fiery chariot come and take Elijah to heaven. He later went on and performed 14 miracles compared to Elijah’s 7. All because he stayed in his rightful place. The first thing a lot of people want to do if they are not happy or comfortable in their place is run away and go someplace else. Gen. 16 tells how Sarah gave her maidservant Hagar to her husband Abraham for the purpose of bearing him a son and “when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes” (vs.4). When Sarah dealt harshly with her Hagar fled from her presence (vs. 6). Later, the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness and said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand” (vs. 9). Hagar had left her rightful place and God was directing her back to it. We are in the army of the Lord and we don’t write up our own orders. We are supposed to go where we’re sent and stay where we’re stationed. Those who run away from hardship are spiritual babies who refuse to grow up. Hagar did obey and we read in vs. 10, “Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, ‘I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.’” For going where God told her to go and staying where God told her to stay Hagar received the exact same blessing as the father of our faith, the great Abraham (Gen. 13:16). You would not exist if there was not a plan for your life and a place where you are supposed to be. You are saved to serve and the most miserable life is to live for yourself. Heb. 13:21a says the great Shepherd will “make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is pleasing in His sight…” God is working in you to desire and pursue His perfect will and His will is for you to be in your proper place. He’ll get you there if you will listen to His voice and obey His leading. God’s direction is connected to spiritual desire so take heed to the desire down in your spirit. “Deep calls unto deep” (Ps. 42:7a) and that desire down inside will guide you to the place you are supposed to be. God put that craving inside of you and He is working in you through that desire. Phil. 2:13 says, “fir it is God Who works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.” Once you know what God’s plan is for your life you must exercise free will and step into that plan. It is a serious thing and very dangerous to be out of your place. God will not bless disobedience and if you stay out of your place long enough it will cost you. It will cut years off of your life and you’ll never reach your full potential. Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” To live the good life you must die to your own plans and dreams and submit to God’s plan for your life. John 5:11b says, “…they forsook all and followed Him.” Matt. 20:16 says, “Many are called but few are chosen.” You are chosen when you step away from your own personal plan and separate yourself unto the plan of God. It is a privilege to be chosen so stop making excuses (Luke 9:59-62) and go forward and never look back. Blessings, satisfaction, fulfillment, and development are in your predetermined place so go where you are supposed to go and stay where you are supposed to stay. And, by all means, stop comparing yourself with other people and their call and their place. If God is calling you to the frigid wastelands of Siberia then don’t murmur and complain that you’re not sent to the sandy beaches of the Dominican Republic. Stop thinking the grass is greener on the other side. It is an honor to serve God, wherever that may be, so never act like you are doing Him a favor. You are special in God’s eyes and the body of Christ needs you so never consider yourself to be of little significance and value. God has a plan for your life and a specific place for you to reside so put on your marching shoes and He will lead you every step of the way. The good life is before you but you must go forward and possess it (Deut. 1: 8,21,25). Start today. Indeed, it will be the smartest thing you’ve ever done. COMPLIMENT BY PASTOR PATRICK BWAYO: GODS MISSION IS TO TRANSFORM YOUR CARNAL KNOWLEDGE SOUL FROM BELIEVING SERVING AND WORSHIPING EARTHLY JERUSALEM KINGDOM JEWISH TRADITION VISIBLE THINGS WHICH ARE MERE COPIES AND SHADOWS OF THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM KINGDOM INVISIBLE THINGS SO THAT YOU CAN BELIEVE, WORSHIP AND SERVE THE REAL HEAVENLY JERUSALEM INVISIBLE THINGS. GOD IN HIS ALLEGORICAL/ FIGURATIVE INSPIRATION THROUGH THE PROPHETS DURING THE CREATION OF THE OLD COVENANT BIBLE STRETCHING FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION; WHICH IS NOW READ AND INTERPRETED IN CARNAL KNOWLEDGE ALL OVER THE WORLD TO THIS DAY OF 2014 ONWARDS AND FOR EVER AND EVER USES EARTHLY JERUSALEM VISIBLE THINGS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AS COPIES AND SHADOWS OF THE INVISIBLE THINGS OF HEAVENLY JERUSALEM, GOD CHOOSE A PHYSICAL NATION OF ISRAEL IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO USE THEIR EARTHLY JERUSALEM JEWISH TRADITION VISIBLE THINGS RECORDED IN OLD COVENANT BIBLE AS COPIES(IDOLS) AND SHADOWS (BLINDERS/ MASKS) TO HIDE AWAY OR MASK THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM INVISIBLE THINGS IN PATTERN. IN THE NEW COVENANT BIBLE HE CHOOSES AN ANOINTED NATION FROM ALL NATIONS IRRESPECTIVE OF NATIONALITIES, COLOR, SECTS, RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS, DENOMINATIONS ACCORDING TO 2 CORINTH3: 5-6, James1: 18-21, Rom 2: 28-28 TO BE HIS ROYAL CHOSEN NATION EQUIPPED WITH HIS KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM INSTEAD OF A CHOSEN NATION OF ISRAEL OF THE MIDDLE EAST. THE NEW CHOSEN GENERATION OF THE COVENANT BIBLE,CHOSEN BY GOD FROM ALL NATIONS, WHO ARE THE JEWS BORN OF THE HOLY SPIRIT KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM CONNECTED BY GOD FROM THE WHOLE WORLD ARE TO TAKE OVER ALL THE AFFAIRS OF THE WHOLE WORD BY GOD LEADING THEM THROUGH THE PROMISED NEW COVENANT BIBLE WHICH HE HIMSELF INTERPRETS FOR US. 2 Corinth 3: 5-5, 1 John 2: 7-8, Isaiah 45: 7-8, 1 John 5: 7-8. Isaiah 29: 11-23, Col 2: 10-23, Col 3: 1-14... Use KJV Bible. Therefore when you believe the Earthly Jerusalem visible things which are mere copies and shadows of the heavenly Jerusalem invisible things, you are a slave of and in bondage of serving, worshiping the earthly Jerusalem Jewish visible things imposed on all humanity until God interprets and teaches the promised New Covenant Bible to each one of us individually. 2 Corinth 3: 5-6....13-15, Gal 4: 21-28, Heb 1: 1-2. Use KJV Bible.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 21:47:56 +0000
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