Hidden, But Not From God
by Matt Moore
About two months ago as I was walking the land of Ellel Ministries USA and praying, I heard the words “uncover the land.” The Lord confirmed this word through other team members and intercessors and we set about doing so. Our first step in uncovering the land was to do a ‘controlled burn’, where we burnt the tall grasses and weeds that had now covered much of the open space. To our surprise, when the tall grasses were gone, and we began to rake up debris, we could see in certain areas around our pond various kinds of trash and garbage just under the surface – piles of plastic used on strawberry fields, when the land was still farmed over ten years ago, numerous beer bottles, and the rusting inner springs of old mattresses. In total, we carried away three commercial construction dumpsters full of trash. But that wasn’t all. We also found buried in the forest and weeds, just out of site, over thirty-five tyres. Some of these tyres were old tractor tyres – 6 feet tall and 3 or 4 feet wide.
As we’ve laboured to accomplish the clean up of all this uncovered trash, the Lord has reminded me again and again that what we are doing in the physical with the land is exactly what the Lord does with our body, soul and spirit in the invisible. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. We can dress ourselves up with proper jobs, clothes, social lives, and possessions. To the naked eye, we have it together. Many times, we even have ourselves fooled. The things we carry just below the surface have been around so long they seem like part of us. Like the tyres we uncovered on the land, some of which we discovered have been here for up to forty years, we begin to believe some of the ‘garbage’ that has been with us for so long is actually part of us. Like the hills of rubbish that we thought were actually part of the identity of the land, God sees those inner wounds, distorted beliefs, and past sins we carry as an overlay on our true identity and He wants to remove it.
God sees it, but do we? This is one of the greatest challenges in our Christian walk … to truly see things the way the Lord does – especially when it involves us personally. He wants to ‘uncover’ that hidden stuff – not so He can embarrass us or make us wallow in it – but so He can remove it. ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed’ (Isaiah 53:5). He wants to heal us. He’s already done the work. The question is: Do we even know we need healing, or are we believing those things are just ‘normal’. Let’s ask Jesus to show us the truth!
Prayer: Lord Jesus, please show us those things we have covered and dressed up that don’t belong in our lives. Show us those things we’ve accepted as our identity, which are actually an overlay and distortion of who You made us to be. We want to know the truth. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Matt Moore Matt is the National Director of Ellel Ministries USA where he serves with His wife Becky and their two daughters. Matt grew up in Indonesia. He was a corporate litigation attorney for 10 years and a pastor for 8 years before he joined the Ellel USA team in 2014.
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