Joshua

Comment:

Joshua is a complex book that can't be covered in one brief message. I'm including commentary on two passages from Joshua—early and late—that might help. And if you have a specific passage you'd like me to address, I'll be happy to do that.

PASSAGE: "I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9).   COMMENT: Joshua has spent his entire adulthood in the shadow of Moses, whose relationship with the Lord was close and personal. Now, with Moses gone and the leadership descended on him, Joshua might be concerned about whether that same relationship will continue. This clear and firm statement is the reassurance that God is truly the Lord of Joshua's being, as God was the Lord of Moses' being. God is the Lord of our own being—the Lord is the Christ, the unique expression of all that God is the true identity of each and every one of us. Once we know, with no possibility for doubt, the Lord is with us wherever we go, there is no reason to be timid or afraid.     PASSAGE: "Choose this day whom you will serve ... but as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15).   COMMENT: The passage is one of my personal favorites. I think it represents one of the clearest understandings of the spiritual law under which our shared human experience unfolds. The Israelites have stumbled through their wilderness experience as we often stumble through ours—by divine grace, without clearly understanding the spiritual energies at work. Their basic needs were met. Those who could not release their focus on the past had to perish in the wilderness, as our own 'thought people' insistent on clinging to the past must dissolve through our human challenges. They crossed the Jordan River into a new relationship with the Power of God, and have to this point been pretty reactive, fighting necessary battles and still relying on God to provide.

Now, Jonah is introducing a deeper expression of spiritual truth. From now on, their lives will express according to the choices they make. If they want to continue to claim and enjoy the love and abundance of the Lord of their being -- their indwelling Oneness with the Allness of God—they must make that choice. If they make other choices, they must expect other results. We are not here, as spiritual beings in human form, to be blindly obedient to the dictates of a distant God and accept whatever we receive as God's will. We are here to create our life experiences according to the choices we make. God as infinite grace carries us through wilderness experiences of our own creation. But there comes a time when we must claim our own creative power if we are to move forward in spiritual expression.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed