Claiming God’s Promises
Joshua 13:1-7
By the beginning of Joshua 13, the major organized opposition to Israel’s advance into Canaan has been defeated. All that remains is for the land to be divided amongst the 12 tribes and for those tribes then to go and claim their inheritance, eliminating further local resistance and settling down to enjoy the fruit of God’s promise.
As a result, though God had given them the land, there was still a great deal of land to be possessed. This sounds familiar, does it not? As Christians, we cross the Jordan through the waters of baptism. As the Israelites faced Jericho and Ai, we fight some significant battles establishing God’s sovereignty in our lives and yet there remains much to be done! We must possess the promised land! Interestingly, when you read about the parameters of the land God gave them, you realize Israel never really possessed all of the land God had promised. The obvious question for us today becomes, “What areas of promise in our lives are yet to be possessed?”
Throughout Joshua, 3 things appear to be of upmost importance: surrender, consecration and appropriation. Surrender in the sense that there is no victory without surrender to God. The Israelites were only successful to the extent they surrendered themselves to God. Jesus admonishes us in Luke 14:25-33 that with out complete surrender, we cannot even be his disciples! We have become accustomed in our culture to a “Luby’s” style Christianity. We can choose our Christianity based on the music, the preacher, the children’s program and etc. Years ago while planting churches in Ukraine, we would often eat at University cafeterias. Typically the waitress would come and ask you what you wanted to eat. After requesting several different dishes from the menu which they did not have, she would inevitably inform us of the one thing they did have, leaving us to wonder why she didn’t simply tell us in the first place! Being a disciple of Jesus is more akin to Ukrainian cafeteria than to Luby’s!
Consecration, the setting apart of your life and talents, is another key throughout Joshua. God gave them the land, but he expected them to fight for it! In the same way, God has blessed us in many ways, with many talents and many opportunities. We have go to realize that God’s kingdom is here! He expects us to utilize our talents and abilities for building up the kingdom now.
Finally, in chapters 13-21, the portions of land for distribution were chosen by lot. The land was surveyed and divided leaving each tribe to go and possess what God had appropriated them. Interestingly, choosing the land by lot put the blessing to be received completely in God’s hands. It takes faith to appreciate the blessings God has given us and even more faith to then claim those promises.
If we were to continue our study into the book of Judges, we would find a dark picture of Israel, in part, because they failed to possess that which God had given them. By faith, let us possess God’s promises, for our own good and that of future generations.
