Go take what God has promised you!
If we fail to take possession of the promises that He has made to us, then we are not where He wants us to be.
April 18
Then Joshua asked them, "How long are you going to wait before taking possession of the remaining land the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has given to you?”
Joshua 18:3
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Go take what God has promised you!
Seven of the tribes still have not taken possession of the land that had been promised to them. Joshua challenges them in our verse and asks them why they are still waiting around and not taking the gift that was given to them. God had promised them the entire land of Canaan and had promised to drive out all of the nations from before them. For the last seven years they have been marching through the land and defeating one enemy after another.
They have defeated all of the major enemies in the land and all that remains is that they go and take possession of the land that has been allotted to each individual tribe. It is difficult to say why they didn’t do that. They had been fighting for seven years and so they might have been tired. It is hard to imagine a great leader like Joshua challenging them like that if that was the case.
It is more likely that they were just being lazy. They had conquered large chunks of the land of Canaan and they may have been satisfied living in the land of someone else’s inheritance rather than going out and taking their own. The problem with that was that wasn’t God’s plan. God wanted them to spread out and fill the land and to drive out all the other nations so that He could make them a completely separated nation. God had a special blessing for each tribe that they could only receive from within their inheritance. And so Joshua tells them to stop sitting around and go out and take what God has given them.
We also can fall into this same problem in our lives, ministries, and churches. Sometimes it is much easier to just sit in the comfort of someone else’s inheritance than it is to go and take possession of the one that was promised to you. The problem with that is that you will not experience all that God has for you nor will you be in the center of His will for your life if you do that.
God’s promises are not just so that we can be blessed; they are also so that we can be positioned where God wants us so that He can fulfill the plan that He has for our lives. If we fail to take possession of the promises that He has made to us then we are not where He wants us to be. And because we are not where we are supposed to be we will miss out on the future blessings that God has for us there and we are not where He can use us most effectively.
Joshua told the seven tribes to stop free-loading off of the other tribes and to go and take what was theirs. Would God tell you the same thing? If you are not where you are supposed to be; stop sitting around and go there! Jesus, lead us to where we need to be.