Promised Land?
You know it is easy to look at someones life and judge their success and their wholeness by what is visible to the human eye. However, we would be amiss to believe that what we see defines a whole person, a healed person, a successful person. A promised land dweller.
Everyone has a behind closed doors self. While we are busy looking at appearances there is the heart that God looks upon. We can’t see the struggles they are facing. We may see some areas of success, but we can’t see what they have to face daily within and without in their walk with God.
There is a misunderstanding about the Promised land we all are subject to believe. There is a consensus that if we can just reach the promised land then everything will be A-O-K. But, there are giants there. They are not just going to pack up and leave without a fight.
Just because the Israelites had finally crossed the river into the land didn’t mean there were no longer going to be struggles. Not in the least. It was now truly time to fight. Everything they had been through up until now had been training them to divide and conquer. Joshua and Caleb, who years before had stated that the giants could be taken, were now standing face to face with the inhabitants of the land.
On Promised Land
The day had come that they made it in. The only two left of everyone who left Egypt. They had finally set their feet on promised ground. It was time to face the giants and walk their talk. It was time to take the land.
An honest person will tell you that though they have made it to the promised land they are still having to fight. That everyday they have to fight to take the land still unconquered, or to stand firm on the ground they have already gained. They are not in the desert anymore. They can see and taste some of the fat and fruit of the land, but they have to hold onto something to prevent them from losing ground and running in fear.
Memorials
They have to hold onto the memories of what God has done in their lives that builds their faith to go conquer and protect the promised places. Evidence that God was with them and that He was faithful to do what He promised is what keeps them strong and able to fight.
Read Joshua 4:1-8 here.
When God parted the water, and the people had crossed over, there was a time of erecting memorials. They were commanded to take up stones to build a memorial in the place where the priests stood with the ark, and another where they had set foot in the promised land. I wondered why God had them build memorials. Especially one that they wouldn’t be able to see. I asked myself why two? The one in the midst of the river, and the one on the other side of the Jordan.
It was so they would remember at all times what He had done. In times of drought those memorial stones would be able to be seen. When they were not in times of drought then the stones set up inside the promised land would remind them of God’s faithfulness to dry up the river so they could enter in. How much more does our recollection of something more than once build our faith?
Reasons to Worship
Today give God the worship He deserves by erecting memorials of what He has already done in your life. Revisit the ones you erected a long time ago too. Build one in your heart, and one you can see. You can do this by writing down what God has done for you on the tablet of your heart, and then in some way make it tangible. Put it on paper. These faith builders are going to prepare you and I for the battles to come. They are going to remind you of the victory God promises because we still need faith in the promised land.
❤ Melinda
Another Samaritan Woman 