Where are you going?

You will remember the original call of God to Moses when He appeared to him from the burning bush at the backside of the desert, while he was tending the flocks of his Father-in-law Jethro. Let us remind ourselves of the words that God spoke to Moses. Exodus 3:7–10. God said "I have seen", "I have heard", so "I have come down". What a great God we have, a God who sees and hears and acts. God said "I will bring them up from the land of oppression a land of continual struggle, a land of slavery and bondage and of going round in circles, to a land that is free and flowing with milk and honey a land of plenty, a land of freedom and space."

This land is the Promised Land that God wants you and I to possess by Faith. He will equip and enable us to do this because He is Faithful who fulfills His promises.

As you know it wasn’t as straight forward as all that. The Egyptians were not going to let their slaves go that easily. God fulfilled His promise because Moses was obedient to the word of God. Each one of us needs to hear and then to act on Gods word to us individually, in our churches and in our communities. The command of God to move forward came form Joshua to the officers of the camp. Let's look at how Joshua motivates this vast number of people. (Joshua 1:10–18) Joshua calls together the leaders of the nation to give them a command, not to ask their advice. This is significant. Moses had organised the leaders of the nation. Back in Deuteronomy 1:15 in his farewell address to the nation, Moses said to the people, "So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and appointed them heads over you, leaders of thousands, and of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers for your tribes." Moses organised the nation this way so that he could communicate quickly with the people through the officers. But here Joshua assembles the leaders to give them God's orders. There are times when spiritual leaders must consult with the people they lead, whether it's in the home arena, in Christian ministry or service, or in the life of the church, to build consensus. But this isn't one of those times. 

We eventually get to the point, where after countless events from Egypt to the edge of the Jordan the people are prepared to listen and act upon the word of God. Joshua 1:11 is a key verse here as it requires action on our part. The officers have been dispatched to communicate a message from Joshua "Prepare yourselves", "in three days we will move". The reply from the people to this message can be found in Joshua 1:16 "All you command us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go." Jesus said, on many occasions "come and follow me", "leave all". Jesus calls us to a higher place, a place where we can find provision, plenty and contentment in Him who is in the Father.


I hope that you and I are among those people who are listening to the voice of God and are waiting for the command to move forward. Yes, it may be unknown territory and we may not know what awaits us, the Israelites certainly didn't, but the real issue is are you and I prepared to go or are we going to hang around on the edge an wait to see what happens. If you hang around the edge I guarantee you will be left behind. Do you have that expectancy that what is ahead is going to be better than where I am at , in a desert eating 'wotsits' (manna literally means what is it) and quails. What a diet! God has got more in the land of plenty. He doesn't promise it will be easy and there will be battles, some we win and some we lose, but what He does promise is a life fulfilled and a reward beyond compare.
We have now arrived at Joshua 3 that leads us onto our third point.