Day 32: A new season

According to Peter, God has given us his very great and precious promises, and everything we need is contained in them. God’s provision for you is in these promises. In order to receive Gods provision, you have to know His promises and how to move in and possess them. So let’s see how God's people Israel entered into the inheritance that God had promised for them.

You can their story in the book of Joshua. Rightly understood, this book of Joshua provides a pattern that we too can follow as we enter into our inheritance in the New Testament.

Joshua 1:1-3 says:

“Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses.” (NAS)

This opening of the book of Joshua gives us the key to understanding what follows in the rest of the book. Bear in mind that God started what He had to say to Joshua with the statement, "Moses, my servant is dead; now therefore..." and I just want to point out a kind of principle in the spiritual life that often a death has to precede a new move. So many times, something has to die before we can take the next move. Moses had been one of the greatest leaders that God ever gave to His people and yet it was only after his death that his people could move into their inheritance. So, although they mourned the death of Moses, it was not a disaster, but it was a necessary preliminary to the next move.

I believe we find this in our own lives spiritually. It is like the cycle of the seasons. At the end of the summer there comes fall, and then winter which is a time of death. But out of the time of death of winter there comes the newness and renewal of spring. I believe there's something like that in our lives. So often, when God has something new before me, something old has to die first before I can move into the new.

Let's go on with this lesson from Joshua. God required that all the people cross over. That's so different from the contemporary Church, where if we get a 50% response from the people, we think we are doing pretty well. But at this point, in dealing with His people, God said not one of them is to be left behind. They are all to cross over. And I believe there is something ahead of the people of God in the next few years that is going to be very like that, where all the people who want to belong to God's people and into God's inheritance are going to have to cross over.