April 11, 2018
Then Joshua said to the people, ""Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you."" (Joshua 3:5)
If we are genuinely walking with God, He is always doing things that are beyond the natural. This is simple to understand, for God IS supernatural! When He intervenes, things happen which ""eye has not seen, ear has not heard: all that God has prepared for those who love Him"" (1 Corinthians 2:9). We should expect the supernatural when He is in the equation.
PREPARED
God knew that the people would not be ready for this unless they were prepared. ""Consecrate yourselves"" was his instruction. The word means to ""be holy, removed from common things."" If we are to see God work, we need ""eyes to see"" that are not clouded by the world. This takes intentionality and preparation on our part. We will miss the wonder if we are not spiritually sensitive.
THE NEXT FAITH STEP
Along with this consecration is the willingness to follow. God instructed Joshua to instruct the priests to take up the ark of the covenant (which represented God's presence) and ""Stand still in the Jordan.""
This was no simple, natural step. The Jordan was large and raging at this time of the year. To step in and expect some type of miracle took extraordinary faith. They could have rebelled, as their parents did 40 years before. Gratefully, they believed God enough to, like Peter, put their feet in the water.
When they believed and obeyed, the waters were cut off and stood up in a heap on either side of them, to the left and to the right. This is a miracle in itself, but if you don’t know the geography you will miss the massiveness of this miracle. The distance from the city of Adam to the Salt Sea (Dead Sea) was 30 miles! This allowed the whole nation of Israel to walk right across the Jordan and enter into the Promised Land on dry ground.
OUR JORDAN
... may seem huge and raging. There are places we know God wants us and those around us to go, but we may be fearful or wondering how it is at all possible. We must prepare through holiness to see God and then we must take the next step in believing obedience.
We must do this in obedience to God, but we must also realize that our children are behind us and many, many others. They need to see God’s wonder and be able to walk in it, made possible by our holy obedient faith. If we will “stand still in the Jordan” as God instructs, we will help them enter the Promised Land also. Our faith is not just about us.
If we will consecrate ourselves, believe in His wonder and obey, we will discover that God is the same God, with the same wonder. He is waiting to display it to us and to thousands behind us, if we will cooperate with Him!
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