Drawing your line in the sand
draw a line in the sand
idiom
1. a point beyond which, once the decision is made, the decision and its resulting consequences or benefits are permanently decided and irreversible.
2. a point of decision beyond which one will proceed no further.
3. to create a real or artificial boundary or distinction between (two places, people or things)
4. to indicate the threshold or level above which something will become unacceptable or will provoke a response; to create a boundary and imply or declare that its crossing will provoke a (negative) response.
Drawing your line in the sand is simply making a decision, from your heart, that you will not allow anything or anyone to move you away from it. This decision, when based on the Word of God that one has believed, becomes an ‘all in’ commitment. It is a permanent and irreversible decision of the heart.
It is not motivated by need or circumstances although the decision will affect both. It is motivated by a deep conviction, a truth that has become to you more valuable than any previous conviction, even something that we may have perceived as truth. This value and our determination not to compromise it in any way is the motive behind the decision. It is the Word becoming alive. It is a concept becoming to you, a reality. It is words on a page becoming spirit and life to your heart.
The line drawn is the fruit of belief; the action that the spirit of truth inspires when we believe. It is effortless and peaceful yet at the same time bold and intolerant! It is the result of having received what we have believed, even though there may be no tangible, physical evidence to support it.
Your line in the sand is a fruit of the truth you have believed.
Drawing your line in the sand can seem, to those around you, foolish and irresponsible, but to you it is a sound decision based on facts that the spirit has made alive to your heart. To you it is the obvious choice – one that there is no risk involved. It is agreeing with God, our Father. It is surrendering entirely the results to Him knowing that “…no word from God is void of power…” Luke 1:37asv; He “… hastens His Word to perform it…” Jeremiah 1:12kjv; “…not one of all His promises has failed…”, Joshua 23:14niv
Jesus drew his line in the sand concerning his Father’s Word. He made a decision to only do what He saw his Father do, John 5:19. Where did Jesus see his Father do anything? The same place that you and I see both the Father and Jesus ‘doing’…in the Word.
Jesus took those words and wrote them on his heart. He learned to keep them by living them. Living them released the strength of the spirit dwelling in Him. Those words mixed with his steadfast belief in them produced a determination in him to stand against and not participate in anything contrary to His Father’s word. And he did this before He was baptized in the spirit for power.
There is no compromise in the Spirit of Truth.
Once Jesus was baptized by John and received the spirit for power, Acts 10:38, He had the authority and power to execute His calling. We see him executing that authority when he went to Jerusalem on his very next visit (only 12 days after the baptism) when he casts the money changers out of His Father’s house! Fearlessly by Himself!
For many years, Jesus had gone to the temple and witnessed those men defiling His Father’s house, but now He had authority to cast them all out. Jesus had ‘drawn his line’ long before but had no authority to execute it. Now, He was God’s priest with authority over the true temple! Read the account in John 2:13-22. Jesus had received from His Father revelation of the Word, he knew that the physical realm only represented the true spiritual things. Jesus lived by this understanding.
Paul expressed it like this;
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Today, our body is the house of the spirit of God,
1 Corinthians 3:16 & 2 Corinthians 6:16.
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
In the old testament people went to the temple to commune with God. Jesus was God’s true temple, made without hands,
Hebrews 9:11,24
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
2 Corinthians 5:19 states that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself! The temple was a picture or shadow of the true temple and true priest. Jesus would not allow anything to defile His ‘house’ (his body) and was indignant about anyone else defiling the temple of God, not because of the physical value to God, but because of it’s spiritual significance and what it showed about what Jesus, the true temple and High Priest, would be for man;
Hebrews 8:1-2.
We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.
Jesus’ action was not motivated by carnal anger or frustration but by righteous indignation.
indignation in·dig·na·tion \ˌin-dig-ˈnā-shən
noun
1. strong displeasure at something considered unjust, offensive, insulting or base; righteous anger
He placed a higher value on the spiritual significance of what He saw by the leading of the Spirit, not to the offense of his flesh. He esteemed the Word and purpose of His Father greater than His very own flesh – and the pleasure or discomfort it could give. Remember, He cast out those money changers by Himself. They were more in number, yet He did not hesitate and they feared Him! Why?! To them he was just another man yet they fled at his instruction. Jesus was being led of the Spirit and that authority and power cannot be resisted by the natural! It was mentioned over and over again by those who heard and saw him;
Matthew 7:29
He spoke as one having authority and not as the scribes.
Mark 4:41
“…what manner of man is this that even the wind and seas obey him”.
Mark 1:29
“For with authority He commanded the unclean spirits and they obey him”.
Consider when Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness, He was inspired by the Spirit to go there, not by his own fleshly mind to get something from his Father or be more spiritual. Even though he was led of the Spirit, He was physically affected by fasting just like you or I would be. He was hungry and weakened by it, yet he did not let his response to the temptations be motivated by his flesh. He said that food was not his only source of sustenance but every Word of his Father, which He said in John 6:63 is spirit and life. That is where Jesus had drawn his line. He was going to believe the word regardless of any physical discomfort he would experience. How was he able to do that? He believed the word of his Father.
Mark 9:23 Jesus said, if you can believe, all things are possible to the one who believes…
That word was also written on his own heart (out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks). It was not just a confession to appear holy or a word of knowledge for someone else, it was spirit and life to Jesus – “I live (have life) by every word that my Father has spoken”, was the abundance of his heart speaking.
Was Jesus continually having to ‘draw His line’? No. He, like Abraham, was fully persuaded that what His Father had promised, His Father would fulfill, Romans 4:21.
What our Father promises he is able also to perform!
Like Jesus, our line in the sand should not be connected to anything that can fail. Anything in the natural, carnal, flesh realm will fail. Jesus said , “… the flesh profits not even one thing…” John 6:63 mhv. Paul, in Romans 8:6, put it this way. “…to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
Your ‘line in the sand’ must be drawn as Jesus’ was drawn; in the spirit, based solely on the Word of God, not the situation or the symptoms; only the Word of our Father, which is our guarantee;
Isaiah 55:11
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
When Jesus was nearing his trial, He said, John 12:27, “…my soul is troubled…” and Matthew 26:53,54 in the garden when one of the disciples drew a sword to defend Jesus, He said “…but how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be.” and then before Pilate, “…to this end was I born to bear witness to the truth” (or “to live the word”, John 17:17). He had drawn the line through His steadfast belief on the Word that he had proved in His life, from his youth! He was not going to compromise now. (see Isaiah 7:15 and Psalms 119:9-16, and many more).
Jesus went through the agony of betrayal, crucifixion, separation from His Father in hell all because he had seen the end in the Word of His Father and believed it. He lived it with all his heart. What he saw in the word was ‘the joy set before him’ that empoweredhim to endure the “…contradiction of sinners against Himself.”, Hebrews 12:2-3.
What he saw in the word was “the joy set before him”….
We see other examples in the word of people like you and me drawing their line in the sand and not accepting anything less than the word of truth that they heard and believed.
The woman with the issue of blood, in Mark 5, had heard of Jesus healing folks and believed with her heart that all she had to do was touch his clothes and she would be healed. Was she deterred by the crowd? or her physical weakness? or what others might say? NO! Why? She had drawn her line in the sand. She was going to touch Jesus, period! There was no obstacle that she could not overcome between her and touching Jesus. She went ‘all in’! That’s what true faith is, going ‘all in’ in the face of contradictory symptoms and circumstances! In fact, that’s what Jesus told her, “…thy faith has made you whole, go in peace and be whole of thy plague.” Jesus did not take credit for her deliverance, he credited her healing to her faith in the word that she heard and believed, Romans 10:17. It was her belief that produced her actions, not her actions producing belief.
With the same steadfast faith, the woman of Canaan in Matthew 15 received her miracle. What was her ‘line in the sand’? I’m not leaving until I get a word from Jesus that my daughter is free! What word did she believe? That Jesus was the Son of David, the Messiah of God, the One with authority over devils. But, did she get the word right away? No, Jesus ignored her, so she went to his disciples – still no word. So, did she give up? No, not this woman – she drew her line and no obstacle could stop her, yes, even being called a dog by the one she was seeking a word from. Jesus said the woman had great faith, Mathew 15:28. That faith got her the word, “be it unto you even as thou wilt…” Was her faith some intellectual idea she assented to from a sermon she heard in church? Was she just hoping that the Son of David, would pity her and have compassion? Was she thinking “I’ll just pester him until he gets tired of me and gives me what I want? No. Jesus said “…woman great is thy faith…”. Hebrews 11:1 tells us “that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. This woman had received the word of Jesus as all that was necessary for the deliverance of her daughter (something she had long hoped for). What she had heard the scripture say of the Messiah of God and what she had heard of Jesus was all the evidence she needed to believe.
Faith in God’s Word always produces results; it cannot fail; for the word to fail, God would have to fail and God cannot fail!
Jesus said, to a desperate man, that “all things (not some things) are possible to the one that believes”, Mark 9:23. This woman’s belief drew the line and nothing, even Jesus ignoring her & putting her down, could erase it.
The only other time recorded in the scriptures of Jesus commenting on someone’s great faith is in Matthew 8, the centurion who came for his word, too. Could this man’s servant whom he loved, been an Israelite who told his master of the Messiah that would come? Could this centurion have heard the scripture “he sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions”? Maybe, but what we do know is that he understood authority. He lived under it and had exercised it over others. He recognized the power in authority and one who had it. He also knew that this authority was released with a word. He had heard that Jesus had this authority over sickness and disease, and because of that, he came to get his word. That is all he needed. Jesus recognized this mans great faith by the steadfast understanding he expressed in his explanation of authority and his peace about the matter. This man was not anxious. He even declined Jesus’ offer to come to the servant, he said that wasn’t necessary. This man did not need to see to believe, he believed already, that is why he just needed the word of authority released. This man’s line in the sand was “when I get my word, it is done”. Jesus gave him that word and he returned to his home in peace knowing that his servant was healed, even though he had not yet seen his servant.
…for the word to fail, God would have to fail and God cannot fail!
Many times we think we have drawn our line in the sand, but in reality we have not. We have what is called mental assent, which is our natural mind and carnal will power making a decision to agree with something we have heard others have experienced. This appears as faith, as long as there is no resistance, obstacles or set-backs and the symptoms appear to be retreating. Mental assent can even appear bold and confident. But, if things don’t appear to improve or they get worse and we experience resistance, our line in the sand just fades away like the tide washing it out to sea.
Peter thought he had drawn his line when he said he would die before he would ever deny Jesus, Mark 14:27-31. However, when they came to take Jesus in the garden, he fled in fear. He then followed at a fear-safe distance and once in the courtyard where he could see Jesus, he denied him 3 times, even with an oath. What was Peter’s motive behind his declaration? It was not steadfast belief in the word but a natural, emotional, needy, self-centered declaration! How can we say such a thing about the water-walking Peter?! Because he denied Jesus 3 times!
It is easy for us to be bold in our confessions and declarations when everything is going good but what about when it looks bad (naturally speaking)?
How can you know when your line in the sand is drawn? Faith does not look at what we can see with our natural eyes, but what it sees in the spirit. Only the Word of God can give us a clear view of the spirit. Jesus said the words he spoke were spirit and life, John 6:63.
2 Corinthians 4:18
…we look not at the things which are seen (with our natural eyes), but we look at the things which are not seen (with our spiritual eyes): for the things which are seen are temporal (natural, of the flesh); but the things which are not seen are eternal (the spiritual, of the new creation).
When your line is drawn as a fruit of belief in God’s Word, it is a line that nothing in the natural, physical realm can erase! As Jesus said to Jairus, “fear not, only believe and your daughter will be made whole,” Luke 8:50. In fact, our Father God Himself said that. “He sent His word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions,” Psalms 107:20.
When your line is drawn you have peace which goes beyond natural understanding.
When our line is drawn, our belief has moved us into cooperation with His Word on one side of the line and the natural physical realm on the other side, we have chosen the victory in the word that He has sent!
Drawing your line in the sand is not passive in any way! It is you doing all to stand by not moving off the Word of truth that you have believed (not trying to believe). It is you violently taking what Jesus paid a high price to purchase for you! ‘NO’ is not an acceptable answer to one who has believed to receive. Yes and amen are the words resounding in your heart. Those symptoms and circumstances have no pull on your heart because you have drawn your line; you and the word you have believed are all that is left on your side of the line.
You, like the woman of Canaan and the Centurion are walking on knowing it’s done before you actually see anything in the natural.
Thank you for downloading this article. I pray that the truths contained therein will be quickened to your heart and produce the peaceable fruit of freedom and righteousness in your life and those you share it with.