More Thoughts on the Promises of God
“I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised.” Joshua 1:3
I read this wonderful devotional this week on the promises of God. It was too good to not share with you. It is from the devotional Streams in the Desert (Zondervan):
Besides the literal ground still unoccupied for Christ, there is before is the unclaimed and walked territory of God’s promises. What did God say to Joshua? “I will give you EVERY PLACE where you set your foots, AS I PROMISED.” Then He set the boundaries of the Land of Promise – all theirs on one condition: they must march across its length and breadth, measuring it off with their OWN feet.
Yet the never marched across more than one third of the land, and as a consequence, they never possessed more than one third! They possessed only what they measured off and no more.
In 2 Peter 1:4, we read, “He has given us his very great and precious promises.” The land of God’s promises is open before us, and it is HIS will for us to possess it. We must measure off the territory with the feet of obedient faith and faithful obedience, thereby claiming and appropriating it as our own.
How many of us have ever taken possession of the promises of God in the name of Christ? The land of HIS promises is a magnificent territory for faith to claim by marching across its length and breadth, but faith has to yet to do it.Let us enter into and claim our total inheritance. Let us lift our eyes to the north, south, east and west and hear God say, “All the land that you see I will give you!” (Genesis 3:15)
Wherever the tribe of Judah set their feet would be theirs, and wherever the tribe of Benjamin set their feet would be theirs, and so on. Each tribe would receive their inheritance by setting foot upon it. Don’t you imagine that as each tribe set foot upon a given territory, they instantly and instinctively felt, “This is ours?”
An elderly black man who had a wonderful testimony of grace was once asked, “Daniel, how is it that you exhibit peace and joy in your faith?” “Oh, sir!” he replied. “I just fall flat on God’s ‘very great and precious promises,’ and I have all that is in them. Glory! Glory!” One who falls flat on God’s promises knows that all the riches abiding in them are his.
The Marquis of Salsbury, and English statesman and diplomat, upon being criticized for his colonial policies, replied, “Gentlemen, get larger maps!”
I have to confess, sometimes I am working off some pretty small maps. I ask God to enlarge my borders, but do I REALLY believe HE can and WILL do it? Well men like George Mueller, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, D. L. Moody and William Raws believed God could. I want that same kind of faith in the promises of God. How about you? – Bill Welte is President and CEO of America’s Keswick
Compass Pointers: The Kingdom of Heaven is not for the well meaning: it is for the desperate. James Denney
Anchored to the Rock: The self-sufficient do not pray, the self-satisfied will not pray, the self-righteous cannot pray. Leonard Ravenhill
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