Words of Encouragement

Joshua said to the Israelites, "Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God. This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. – Joshua 3:9-11

Walking over on dry ground. Listen to God’s instruction. This is an old writing from several years ago, but I felt it was worth sharing again. It's from the book of Joshua 3:9-17. I have it listed in my journal as "Spiritual steps to walk over on Dry Land".

In verse 9 Joshua tells the children of Israel, "come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God". The first thing we must do to get through our problems is listen to the instruction of the Lord. It's when we don't that we make our situations worse. We will never know how to handle things if we don't go to the source (God) and find out what it is and what's the correct way to move.

It is in the time of going aside, or coming to listen that we are encouraged about the journey ahead. Joshua tells them they will know that the living God is among them because he will drive out the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. This is their proof that God is in the midst of them, he will remove all the different forces that would stand against them coming in and possessing what is for them. God wanted to eliminate these other nations because they were the worshippers of many other gods. The Hittites called their pagan gods, “the thousand gods”.

If we look at the history of the people of Israel we will see that some of these nations were not removed, not because God could not do it, but because they went back and intermingled with them. They married themselves to some of these nations and therefore lost the purity of what God wanted to be in them.

What does that tell us today? God is calling us to come and listen to how to walk through this life to the other side. He wants us to know that he is before us, just as the ark was before the children of Israel. He also wants us to know that he will remove all the spiritual forces that would want to come and dwell among his people. We however must not go back and intermingle with these forces or we will allow the enemy to have a stronghold on our lives.

I pray for us today that we would set ourselves aside so that we can hear the words of God. We will not be able to make this journey until we do the first thing, which is to hear the word of the Lord and what his instruction for us is. This is step one to walking over on dry ground.