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Holy Shivers Over The Holy Land

Rejoicing in the Details of God's Promises

SYNOPSIS: Only a real estate agent or a cartographer would appreciate the Bible passages that give exacting detail of the settlement of land for the tribes of Israel. But what we might find boring, those who were on the receiving end cared very much about those details, because every square inch represented centuries-long waiting for God’s promises now miraculously fulfilled. So whenever you come to a passage on land allotment, write yourself into the story. Even though you don’t have a literal Promised Land for which you are waiting, you are waiting for God to fulfill his promises to you—and believe me, you care about the details of what that will look like. Read it and rejoice in the details as an act of faith, because one day, sooner or later, God will answer your prayers and fulfill his promises to you with specificity and generosity.

The Journey // Focus: Joshua 17:10-11

Manasseh’s boundary ran along the northern side of the ravine and ended at the Mediterranean Sea. North of Manasseh was the territory of Asher, and to the east was the territory of Issachar. The following towns within the territory of Issachar and Asher, however, were given to Manasseh: Beth-shan, Ibleam, Dor (that is, Naphoth-dor), Endor, Taanach, and Megiddo, each with their surrounding settlements.

Ever get the holy shivers? Yeah, me neither. But I’ve seen people respond to God’s blessing in ways—physically and emotionally—that far exceeded their capacity to manage it. Especially in foreign, rural contexts I have watched worshipers get so beside themselves with joy in the Lord that their expressions of love, praise, and gratitude broke human containment. They got down and boogied in response to the blessings of God.

Now when you read Joshua 17, holy shivers are the last response you are likely to have. Frankly, only a real estate agent would be inspired by the details as land is parceled out to the tribes of Joseph. A cartographer might enjoy the chapter a little bit as well because of the prospects of mapping out the Holy Land. But other than those two, I doubt if too many readers are going to be excited with the details of the land distribution that make up chapter 17.

So what is in this for us? Let me answer that by having you put yourself in the sandals of the people in this chapter. Imagine yourself as one of the members of a clan in the tribe of Ephraim. Pretend that you are one of the five daughters of Zelophehad (one of the young ladies was named Noah, by the way; she must have been an amazing woman), who stood to gain real estate as an inheritance because their dad had no sons as heirs. Imagine that you, your parents, grandparents and ancestors going back 400 years had been hearing about a Promised Land that would one day be yours, and all you have known for centuries was slavery and wilderness wandering. You had nothing to your name, no place to call home, no sense of permanence and no real geographical identity. And now, you have been given land—and the land had been described for you with geographical specificity. Do you think you might be a bit excited about the description of your real estate in that context? I think so!

What is described in this chapter (and several surrounding it) represented the promises of God finally fulfilled after what seemed like interminable waiting. This represented answers to prayer. This was a bit of heaven on earth. And the Israelites were rightly excited about real estate details that today we find boring and worthy of skipping past. But don’t—refuse to get either bored or skip happy. Write yourself into this and others stories like it.

Even though you don’t have a literal Promised Land for which you are waiting, you are waiting for God to fulfill his promises to you—and believe me, you care about the details of what that will look like! So whenever you come to a section of scripture like this, rejoice in the details as an act of faith, because one day, sooner or later, God will answer your prayers and fulfill his promises with specificity and generosity.

Going Deeper: Turn to the back of your Bible today and look at the map of Israel that offers a scheme of the allotment of land for the twelve tribes. Now take a moment to rejoice in advance of the Promised Land into which God is bringing you.

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Allowing Canaan To Camp Out In Your Heart

Be Killing Sin Or Sin Will Be Killing You

SYNOPSIS: The Puritan preacher John Owen said, “be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.” Whether it is flat-out disobedience or benign neglect, our disobedience always allows sin to grow. And where sin grows, sin festers, and spiritual anemia, sickness and death will ultimately result. This is a matter of kill or be killed! Go with kill!

The Journey// Focus: Joshua 16:5-6,10

The boundary of their homeland began at Ataroth-addar in the east. From there it ran to Upper Beth-horon. then on to the Mediterranean Sea…. [But] they did not drive the Canaanites out of Gezer, however, so the people of Gezer live as slaves among the people of Ephraim to this day.

The modern reader of Scripture cannot help but read the Old Testament through the eyes of twenty-first century western culture. For that reason, much of what we read seems harsh and unfair, if not brutal and primitive, and definitely at odds with our current values of acceptance and inclusiveness. Even in warfare, how we treat our enemy is much different than it was in Old Testament days—and for that, I am sure our enemies are grateful (although I don’t think they would take the same approach with us).

Case in point: God told the Israelites to totally annihilate the Canaanites and purge them from the land as they went in to possess it. As the people of God moved in, by Divine command, the current residents had to go—every single last one of them.

Now while most Bible-believing Christians today accept that, we are certainly uncomfortable with both God’s command to displace the nations and his method for displacing them. When non-believing people question the harshness of the God of the Old Testament in light of these kinds of stories, we have no adequate answer, although there are reasonable explanations. We simply surrender territory on this issue of the sovereign God’s loving but just nature. My point here is not to defend God. For one thing, he can defend himself. And for another, if we truly understood the wickedness and brutality of the people who occupied Canaan in the days of the conquest—people who would make ISIS look like a Girl Scout pack—we would feel a little better about God’s commands.

Let’s set that aside for now. The point I want to make here is that when we fail to do what God commands, for whatever reason, we will suffer the logical consequences of that failure. Whether if is flat-out disobedience or benign neglect, our disobedience always allows sin to grow. And where sin grows, sin festers, and spiritual anemia, sickness and death will ultimately result. God told the Israelites to drive out the Canaanites; they didn’t. They had their reasons: the Canaanites were harder to get rid of than we might imagine; most of them had been decimated anyway, so what would leaving just a few really hurt; the few that were left actually made good slaves for menial labor that no one else really wanted to do, so leaving them actually made better sense than driving them out. The Israelites had their reasons, and I suspect many of the reasons sounded good.

But sin always has consequences, and the outcome of sin is never good! What was true for Israel is true for you and me today. We are not called to drive out a people from our neighborhood; that kind of literal biblical conquest is over. Yet there is another conquest God has assigned his people: to get rid of sin from their lives. The Apostle Peter spoke of being done with sin:

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. (1 Peter 4:1)

Theologically, we know that; we understand that sin must go. And like the Canaanites, that is not always as easy as it sounds. For that, God gives the Holy Spirit to help us do away with sin in our lives; and he gives the grace of forgiveness when we fail. Moreover, he walks with us as we give continuous effort to mortify our sinful nature. That is not the real problem here: it is when we accept what God calls sin; it is when we enslave what will ultimately enslave us and we allow sin to hang around in our lives—that is the problem. When we justify anger, lust, pride, judgmental attitudes, and other sins that are easy to camouflage, we commit the sin of the Israelites. We have allowed Canaan to camp out in our hearts.

The Bible should serve as a cautionary tale in this regard, for there is story after story of how allowing Canaan to camp out paved the way for Canaan to rise up and bite Israel in the backside. The end result of inattention to sin is always far greater than the pain of sin when it is in full bloom in our lives—and it will always grow into bloom if we neglect our call to decimate it.

Got sin? Deal with it! Even the little, leftover stuff. The good news is, God stands ready to assist those who get serious about being done with sin.

Going Deeper: Is there leftover sin in your life—the little stuff that is easy to camouflage and justify. Quit! Stop! Deal with it! Today is a great day to start, and God will supply both the want to and the will to give it the boot from your life.

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Humility

Forget About Yourself

SYNOPSIS: Forget about yourself! Try it. Practice being absent minded when it comes to you. Get you out of your thoughts, and replace them with prayers of blessings and plans for serving other people in your life. As Jesus did, give yourself away with absolutely no thought of getting anything in return. Surprise someone with compassion. Heap some unexpected and undeserved kindness on another.  Find the most unlikely object of God’s love, and love them like God would. Try it, and you’ll experience a little bit of heaven on earth.

Project 52 – Weekly Scripture Memory // Proverbs 22:4

Humility is the fear of the LORD; its wages are riches and honor and life.

Humility!  It is one of the preeminent qualities of Jesus’ character (Philippians 2:1-11) and one of the highest duties of the authentic Christ-follower (Colossians 3:12-14).  Yet while humility is a virtue we all laud, and hope to possess, we need to remember that in the days of the Biblical writers, the pagan world scoffed at the idea of humility. To them, pride and dominance were highly regarded, while meekness of character was to be avoided at all cost.  So a Biblical writer promoting personal humility was a radical concept in the ancient world.

But those Biblical writers redefined humility in a more noble light; they saw it as simply having a right estimation of oneself rather than what the world saw as a weakness and a character flaw. Having a proper estimation of oneself—that’s really what humility is.  I think biblical humility was defined quite nicely by the kids who built a clubhouse and then posted these rules on the door:  Nobody act too big, nobody act too small, everybody just act medium. 

That’s good:  Not too big, not too small…just see yourself as God sees you.  That’s exactly what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he taught about humility in Romans 12:3,

“Don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought to, but think soberly, according to the faith God has given you.”

It is this proper estimation of yourself that sets something quite powerful loose in your world and produces the kind of “riches and honor” that Solomon talked about.  You see, on the one hand, humility frees you from self-centeredness and arrogance, while on the other, it releases you from the vicious trap of low self-esteem. And in the process, true humility enables you to enter into a powerful lifestyle of ministering to the needs of others.  That’s what humility does—and there are not too many forces in this world that are as powerful as that.

So how can you cultivate this kind of humility?  There are many ways, but here is one:  Start thinking more of others and less of yourself.  Philippians 2:3-4 says, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.”

I came across a parable about man who was talking with the Lord one day and said, “Lord, I’d like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”  The Lord led him to two doors.  He opened one of the doors and the man looked in.  In the middle of the room was a large round table.  In the middle of the table was a large pot of mouthwatering stew, but the people sitting at the table were thin and sickly; they appeared famished.  They were holding spoons with very long handles, and each found it possible to reach into the pot and take a spoonful…but impossible to get the spoons back to their mouths. The handle was longer than their arms.  As the man shuddered at the sight of their misery, the Lord said,  “You have just seen Hell.”

They went to the next room and found the same large round table with a large pot of mouthwatering stew in the middle.  These people had the same long-handled spoons, but unlike the first room, these were well-nourished and joyful people.  The man said, “Lord, I don’t understand.” The Lord replied, “It is simple—it takes one skill:  They’ve learned to feed each other, while the miserable think only of themselves. You have just seen heaven.”

Let me give you a challenge for this week: Forget about yourself! Try it. Practice being absent minded when it comes to you. Get you out of your thoughts, and replace them with prayers of blessings and plans for serving other people in your life. As Jesus did, give yourself away with absolutely no thought of getting anything in return.  Surprise someone with compassion. Heap some unexpected and undeserved kindness on another.  Find the most unlikely object of God’s love, and love them like God would.

Try it, and you’ll experience a little bit of heaven on earth.

“He rides pleasantly enough whom the grace of God carries.” ~Thomas A` Kempis

Reflect & Apply: Identify one person whom you can serve this week—and do it without being noticed!

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Asking For The Whole Enchilada

God Has Boundless Resources

SYNOPSIS: A.B. Simpson said, “Our God has boundless resources. His only limit is us. Our thinking and praying are too small.” So in your praying, don’t just ask for the bare minimum, go for the whole enchilada, because if you don’t ask, he won’t give. And if you don’t ask bigly, don’t be surprised that you don’t receive bigly. Your Father wants you to see unlimited possibilities in him. He longs for you to ask, and ask daringly. And when you do, you honor him.

The Journey// Focus: Joshua 15:18-19

As Caleb’s daughter, Acsah, got down off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What’s the matter?” She said, “Give me another gift. You have already given me land in the Negev; now please give me springs of water, too.” So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.

In your praying, don’t just ask for the bare minimum, go for the whole enchilada. That is why I think this otherwise unimportant story was included in scripture. If anything, Acsah’s request of her father teaches us not to sell God short. God is a big God and his resources are unlimited. As A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination, said, “Our God has boundless resources. His only limit is us. Our thinking and praying are too small.”

Acsah was the daughter of Caleb. Caleb was one of two spies out of twelve that came back from scouting the Promised Land with a positive report. That story is told in Numbers 13, forty five years prior to this moment in time. Caleb was of a different kind of spirit than the average guy. He was a possibility thinker. He didn’t see obstacles, he saw opportunities. His faith in God informed his asking and his acting.

When the ten other Israelite spies saw their enemies as giants and themselves as grasshoppers by comparison, Caleb (along with Joshua, the twelfth guy in this consortium of spies) saw only the God of Israel who was bigger than Israel’s biggest enemy—even bigger than the gigantic men of Anak (Numbers 13:28). In fact, four decades later in Joshua 14, Caleb, now an eighty-five-year-old, boldly asks Joshua to give him the mountains around Hebron for his inheritance. And in declaring that he could take the mountains, he specifically called out the giants of Anak, who were still in the land occupying the very mountain that now belonged to Caleb. I think Caleb was still spoiling for a fight with these gigantors all these years later.

His daughter was cut from the same cloth as Caleb. Like her father, she was bold, she was brassy, and she didn’t see problems, she saw possibilities. When her father gave the inheritance—a rarity that a woman would be specifically named in the allotting of land in that time and culture—she decided that what he gave her was not enough. Not that she was ungrateful, she just knew the can-do spirit that her father possessed—and she leaned into it. She knew that he was motivated by faith; that his eye saw beyond what normal people saw, so she appealed to his character in asking for not only a piece of land, but for the nearby springs as well. After all, what good is land in the wilderness if it has no access to water? So Acsah wasn’t just asking to gratify her selfish desires, she was asking for something that was essential for her family to succeed and expand.

And her father granted her request. (Joshua 15:19) My guess is that as she walked away from this encounter, old Caleb turned to his buddies and said, “that’s my girl!”

And your Father will grant your requests, too. But if you don’t ask, he won’t. And if you don’t ask bigly, don’t be surprised that you don’t receive bigly. Your Father is of a different Spirit—one that wants his children to see unlimited possibilities in him. He longs for his kids to ask, and ask daringly. That is why he has encouraged them throughout his Word to ask for the desires of their heart. In one of the most stunning passages in scripture, the Son of God said,

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father. (John 15:7-8)

Now obviously, this isn’t a blank check for selfish asking. The key to what John 15:7-8 says is that we first must “abide in him and allow his words to abide in us.” The “abiding in his word” isn’t about Bible reading or scripture memorization, it is about intimately knowing the character of God—and letting that knowledge inform your asking.

This is the story of Caleb and Acsah. Both of them were of the tribe that asked for the whole enchilada. I hope you will join me in being a part of that tribe, too!

Going Deeper With God: What are you asking God to do in your life? Kick it up a notch; don’t just ask for the land, ask for the springs, too. God loves it when you do that.

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Faith Sees Farther

A Daring of the Soul

SYNOPSIS: William Newton Clark said, “Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see!” As believers in Jesus, you and I are in the mountain moving business, and our currency is faith. If what we are doing doesn’t involve faith—if we can do it ourselves without a desperate need of God—then we are not doing the Lord’s business. But with faith we are, and with it, nothing is impossible.

The Journey// Focus: Joshua 14:10-13

Then Caleb said to Joshua, “Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, with the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.” Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance.

Are you daring great things for God? Whether or not you are is your choice, but I say “why not?” You and I have only one life to live, and it will be over soon enough, so let’s try something daring for God. Why not do something that will make a difference in someone’s life one hundred years from now? How about we try something that will leave them talking about us long after we are gone? Yes, let’s attempt something that will be celebrated by saints and angels alike for all eternity! Why not at least try?

That is the story of faith in the Bible. Read Hebrews 11 and you will see that God’s Great Hall of Faith is made up of men and women no different than you and me who stepped out and attempted the impossible for the sake of the kingdom. Now some of them were successful and some of them were not, by the world’s standards anyway, but it was the faith that led them to try that got them eternally noticed in Hebrews 11.

Caleb was one of those kinds of people. He was in his mid eighties when he informed Joshua that he was ready to take on a certain warrior-like and historically large—and I mean physically big and imposing (see Deuteronomy 2:10, 21; 9:2)—segment of the Canaanites in the well fortified hill country surrounding Hebron. “Give me this mountain,” Caleb said to Joshua as the land was being allotted to the tribes, and that has forever become the war cry of unlikely men and woman whose faith sees farther than the eye sees and whose spirit dares to attempt impossible things for God.

I love what William Newton Clark said, “Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see!” As believers in Jesus, you and I are in the mountain moving business, and our currency is faith. If what we are doing doesn’t involve faith—if we can do it ourselves without a desperate need of God—then we are not doing the Lord’s business. But with faith, nothing is impossible. Jesus, the Founder and Finisher of our faith, said, “The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, ‘move!’ and it will move. There is nothing you wouldn’t be able to tackle.” (Matthew 17:20)

We have been given faith—more than enough, actually—but are we daring to exercise it? We have in front of us at the present moment “things farther than we can see.” Or at least we should. If we don’t then we need to come before God and ask him to give us a scary big vision of what could be.

Whatever that vision is, however impossible it might seem, whatever the obstacles that stand between us and it, if it is noble, if it is consistent with God’s kingdom, if we hunger after it, we must stretch ourselves to reach it, to achieve it. William Carey, missionary to India and considered to be the father of modern missions, said, “Attempt great things for God—expect great things from God.”

That is the story of common men and women who stepped out to where others wouldn’t and in so doing, ended up achieving the uncommon. They didn’t step out thinking they were doing the heroic, they just stepped out thinking God would take care of them. And he did—and by stepping out in faith, they stepped into God’s Great Hall of Faith.

“Give me this mountain,” eighty-five-year-old Caleb boldly demanded. He was the forerunner of many others who would do similar:

  • Jabez said, “Enlarge my territory!”
  • David said, “That giant is no big deal!”
  • Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego said, “We like it hot!”
  • Nehemiah said, “Let’s rebuild this wall!”
  • Esther said, “If I die, I die!”

What are you saying? What are you praying? What is your faith laying hold to? What is the Holy Spirit daring your soul to see that your eyes cannot? Dare great things for God—do great things for God.

Going Deeper: Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!” (John 14:12-14) Ask for some big things today!

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Soul Music

Forget Not His Benefits

SYNOPSIS: “Praise the Lord, O My soul, and forgot not his benefits.” Forgiveness, healing, redemption, love, compassion … just to name a few. Now what soul wouldn’t pour forth unfettered praise at the realization of all the undeserved and life sustaining blessings that God graciously gives! So what don’t you offer up some unfettered praise today!

Project 52 – Weekly Scripture Memory // Psalm 103:11-12

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

I love this psalm—it’s my favorite. It is probably right up there with the Twenty-Third Psalm for most people, and I suspect it has made your Top Ten, too!

David is on his game in this psalm; he’s in the sweet-spot of Divine favor, the blessing zone, if you will, as he calls up from his memory banks his Top Ten list of why it is so good to belong to God:

  1. Forgiveness—Psalm 103:3
  2. Healing—Psalm 103:3
  3. Redemption—Psalm 103:4
  4. Compassion—Psalm 103:4
  5. Satisfaction—Psalm 103:5
  6. Justice—Psalm 103:6
  7. Revelation—Psalm 103:7
  8. Patience—Psalm 103:8
  9. Mercy—Psalm 103:9-14
  10. Love—Psalm 103:17

No wonder David “bookends” this psalm with “praise the Lord, O my soul.” (Psalm 103:1, 22) What soul wouldn’t pour forth unfettered praise at the realization of all the undeserved and life sustaining blessings that God graciously gives!

Of course, these benefits aren’t given to just anybody—although they are available to everybody. There is a critical caveat found in Psalm 103:18:

To live under these Divine blessings requires covenant keeping.

God keeps his covenantal promises to bless only those who keep their covenantal promise to obey his laws. Still, though this is a conditional covenant, we get the far better deal, by miles. Even when we don’t always live up to our end of the bargain, God looks upon us through his eyes of compassion, sustains us by his mercy, forgives our repentance and patiently, lovingly, enduringly keeps us in his family.

All I can say to that is “praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits!” (Psalm 103:2)

So take some time to remember the benefits of belonging to God. My guess is, like David, you, too, will be singing a little soul music!

“He rides pleasantly enough whom the grace of God carries.” ~Thomas A` Kempis

Reflect & Apply: One of the greatest benefits of belonging to God is the removal of our sins when we confess them and repent of our sinful ways.  Psalm 103:11-12 says God pardons our sins and removes them as far as the east is from the west.  Last time I looked, that was a long way.  How great is the love of a God who would do that.  How about taking some time to express your thanks to God that he is in the sin removal business.

 

 

 

 

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A Spiritual Vacation or a Spiritual Victory

A Calling to Conquer

SYNOPSIS: God always leads us in triumph. There is always more territory he has destined us conquer. There are always more enemies he has empowered us to defeat. And while a part of you may yearn to sit back and relax, the glory of what it means to be Christian is to march forward as more than a conqueror. And why would we not embrace our calling to conquer? We have the promise of God that he himself will drive out our enemies.

The Journey // Focus: Joshua 13:1,6

When Joshua was an old man, the Lord said to him, “You are growing old, and much land remains to be conquered.… “I myself will drive these people out of the land ahead of the Israelites.”

We will rest when we get to heaven. Until then, there is still work to be done. I am sorry to disappoint you if you were thinking of your Christianity as a spiritual vacation. It is not; it is a spiritual victory. Of course there are ebbs and flows in the journey of faith, but there will always be more promises to possess, territory to claim, enemies to overcome and victories to secure.

Thus it will always be. That is the ongoing saga of redemptive history. While God brings us through challenges and gives us victory over our enemies, the end has yet to be written. Of course, the outcome has been predetermined, but it is still in the making. That is why we say he leads us from victory to victory.

While the promises of God are as good as done, and even though the outcome has been predetermined, that never means the believer gets to sit back and rest on their laurels. God’s rest is not a piece of geography—not at this point, anyway—it is a spiritual condition of triumph. That triumph is experienced in the advance of his kingdom through our lives. Through the work that he has given us to do, we are victorious—and that is what propels us along our journey of joyful rest.

That is evident in the story of Joshua 13. General Joshua has been one of history’s most brilliant military strategist. He has won conquest after conquest against enemies that were fiercer, stronger, better equipped and more battle hardened than Israel’s army. Moreover, God was on their side, and city after city fell into Israel’s hands. But after a long period under Joshua, the time had come for others to lead in the remaining battles.

Yes, battles remained. Get used to it! In preparation for the end of his career, God told Joshua to divide the land between the twelve tribes. He was to assign specific geographical territory to each tribe, even though some of it was yet to be firmly in Israel’s possession. So why divide the land between the tribes before Israel had conquered it?

For one thing, Joshua was advancing in years and the day of his death was looming. The task would not be complete by the time of his passing. Furthermore, there would not be a singular leader over Israel for the next four hundred years as they continued to possess and settle the land, so God assigned Joshua the task of allotting the land among Israel’s tribes, clans and families.

But while that is the practical reason for counting their chickens before they hatched, there was also a faith reason. God was on their side, and he would see to it that the land came under their possession. While they would have to work and war to possess it, we are told by God, “I myself will drive these people out of the land ahead of the Israelites.” God’s promise to work on Israel’s behalf was so certain, that the division of the land could be made even before it was conquered. God’s promise is as good as done. God was asking Israel through this division of land to picture what he had promised. Again, the faith principle is that we need to picture what we want to possess.

So what is the point? Simply this: God always leads us in triumph. There is always more territory to conquer. There are always more enemies to defeat. And while a part of you may yearn to sit back and relax, the glory of what it means to be Christian is to march forward as more than a conqueror. And why would we not embrace our calling to conquer? We have the promise of God that he himself will drive out our enemies.

Yes, the time will come for rest soon enough. In the meantime: onward toward yet another predetermined victory.

Going Deeper: Memorize Romans 8:37-39, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”