Joshua (Larry Crabb’s sixth love letter)
It’s a call to fight.Loving God and becoming holy requires being aware that there’s an enemy within us who will cause more trouble than all of the enemies outside of us, than even the devil.God’s best plan requires hating everything inside us that opposes God.Never mistake Canaan, the promised Land, for heaven.Our inclination is to use God to make our lives work rather than trusting God to accomplish His plan through blessings and hardships.Invite Christians to live for blessings and they will all come forward; churches that never deal with the real fight grow large but mostly with small Christians.
JOSHUA: Guidebook to Victory – From Ray Stedman<-(click here for entire Bible summary)
What the people of Israel went through in their actual historical experiences become patterns, or metaphors, that we can apply to the spiritual battles in the spiritual pilgrimage in which we are engaged.
Chapters 1 through 4 – out of the wilderness and into Canaan.Chapters 5 through 21 – Israel’s conquest of the land.Chapters 22 through 24 – perils and dangers we must guard against.The land of Canaan is a picture of the Spirit-filled life – the life that God intended for every Christian to live.
The land is given to the people of Israel, just as the life in Christ is made available to you absolutely without effort on your part. In the third verse you will notice that although the land has been given, it still needs to be possessed: Title to it is the gift of God; possession of it is the result of an obedient walk.
One of the first things we learn in coming into this place of walking in the Spirit is that although it is a place of conflict, every conflict can be a victory.
It is going to take courage. There can be no drifting aimlessly along with the crowd. You are going to have to walk against the current.
The written word must be our constant, prescribed meditation and study so we may “know the truth and the truth shall set us free,” (cf, John 8:32).
This greatest lesson of the spiritual life is that you have no strength in yourself to stand, no matter how long you have walked before God. You can never have a moment of strength to stand by yourself. Your strength comes out of weakness and your sense of dependence. Your sense of your
constant need of God’s strength is the only thing that will keep you.
Joshua – David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)
Key thought: Yahweh is a promise-keeping God who leads His children through warfare to victory, just as He gave the Israelites the land promised to Abraham and his descendants..
Key Verse: Joshua 1:7 “Be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.”
Key Action: “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:13