Unsettled Land

This a sobering reminder of where we should store our treasures – here on earth or in heaven? What good are riches and even a vast earthly inheritance, should we ever receive one, if they will only fade away with time? Sometimes it’s so funny how we treat and behave toward money, as if it was the answer to this or that problem. I think that even the best Christians can on occasion inadvertently treat money with undeserved reverence. But we can only have one Master and there is only place worthy of storing our treasures – and that is where our hearts should be.

Second, God promises to help us gain our inheritance. Yes, the “gospel is promise.” But while God promises a safe landing, we cannot be guaranteed of safe passage along the way. Joshua and the people of Israel weren’t going to be able to walk into Canaan and easily and politely ask the Canaanites to leave so that they could have their Promised Land. There was going to be a battle.

The same is true of the Christian life. There are struggles and there are trials – seemingly insurmountable circumstances that are only possible to live through because of God’s help. There are also principalities and powers, forces with which we have to reckon. Scripture says that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6: 12). Just as God promised Joshua that He would be with him and the people of Israel – and called them to be strong and courageous – Christ also promises, through his Holy Spirit, to be our strength as we “fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called” (1 Tim. 6:12).

Third, as recipients of His promise, God commands us to be faithful to His Word. Just as the Law of Moses was a set of instructions to understand their relationship with God and neighbour and would guide the Israelites in how to live in the Promised Land, so the Bible is our means of understanding how we are to live while we await our final inheritance. If the Spirit is our help and Counsellor as we live the Christian life, then the Scriptures are “the sword of the Spirit” while we fight this fight (Eph. 6:17). Baptist theologian, Millard J. Erickson says that “the Word of God guides our feet and provides us protection as we engage in spiritual warfare.”

Believers are required to be steeped in and obedient to the Word of God. God’s presence and power are contingent upon our trusting in Him and His Word. It is in Scripture that we learn how to fight the fight of faith. It is in reading Scripture that we are prepared and taught how to lay hold of our heavenly inheritance in Jesus Christ. Hebrews says something similar to this: “Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.” We are called to participate and press on toward the goal through lives of faithful and obedience to God.