Where are you

Joshua is one of the most fascinating books of the Bible. On one level it relates the historical account of an ancient Hebrew leader and the people God called him to lead into the Promised Land. But on another level it's a personal story of promise and of great expectations that God has for each one of us. God calls each of us as individuals yet as a corporate group of believers, to enter the land, to claim a life of adventure lived by faith, experiencing spiritual victory.

I want us to consider Joshua 3 under the following three headings: -

1. Where are they (the Israelites) now?
2. Where are they (the Israelites) going?
3. How are they (the Israelites) going to get there?

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

The Israelites are still in the wilderness where they have been for 40 years wandering around, living off the provisions that God has Mercifully provided for them in the form of quails and manna. They are in this place because of disobedience. Remember, forty years before at Kadesh-Barnea in an event recorded in Numbers 13:25-29 where the nation were presented with a report full of hope and a clear indication what was the will of God. They were promised a land of plenty, but they refused to obey it. Why did they refuse?  mainly because they made a choice to believe the majority report of the ten spies Numbers 13:31-33 instead of believing the minority report of Joshua and Caleb Numbers 13:30. God's command was to enter the land and possess it, to obey by faith. If they had listened to Joshua and Caleb's minority report, they would have spared themselves those difficult years of wandering in the wilderness. 
If we read on a little in Numbers 14:11-12  we find that it appears that God has had enough, (that's a scary thought!)  but was persuaded by Moses to persevere Numbers 14:13-19 , (Oh for godly leaders like Moses, people who are prepared to intercede on behalf of us all). We read that God listened Numbers 14:20 but gave the command that all of that generation should die in the wilderness and would not posses the inheritance that God had promised, except for two men Joshua and Caleb, of whom it says in Numbers 14:24 “But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and he has followed Me fully. I will bring him into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it”.

We are beginning to see here in Joshua 3: that this passage is not just about a group of people who are preparing to move forward it is also about individual people catching the vision of the power of God by Faith, which had, 40 years earlier, cost them a passage into a land of plenty. We now find, 40 years on, that the individuals have a common goal, that of moving forward to posses all that God has got for them. Not by sight or report but by Faith and the word of God to the man Joshua who had kept the vision alive for 40 years.

So you see that God is a God of Mercy in that He goes on giving even when we fail. His Grace is something we don’t deserve we are given new life because God loves us. His Mercies are new every morning because God's heart is a giving heart and He will give and give and give again out of the abundance of His love for you and me. God requires obedience from you and I, we will never realise the full potential of our inheritance if we refuse to stay on familiar ground. Faith requires action James 2:20 “You foolish person! Must you be shown that faith that does nothing is worth nothing?”.

So where are you now? Are you still living in the past, 40 years previous, or do you realise that the time has come for us to move together, to cross a flooded river to find God and all that He has for us. This is a corporate, together plan, not an individual mission for my own salvation. This is US moving together to encourage each other.