God is raising up a Joshua Generation in our day: a generation who will enter into their inheritance and enable others to do the same. We have been looking at some of the defining characteristics of such a generation and considering to what extent those characteristics can be seen in our own lives.
16. The Joshua Generation will be obedient to God’s direction.
Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go (Joshua 1:7).
We know our God, and love Him; and because of that we want to serve Him. We want to do everything He is calling us to do, and to do it out of our love, our passion and our desire for Him.
But we do need to be careful: with greater revelation comes greater responsibility. We cannot mess around with what God shows us. If we are to operate in the fullness of God’s power in the coming days, then the level of holiness required of us is going to go up, off the scale. That is both because of the level of revelation we are beginning to enter into and because of the kind of people we need to be.
For those who hear, but turn back (rather than being ‘careful to do’), there is a danger – and we need to be aware of it. To avoid the danger, we must be ready to do all that God is calling us to do.
Yet not out of fear, but out of love.
17. The Joshua Generation will be prosperous and successful.
You see, if we are able to meditate and obtain that revelation from God, and if we are careful to do the things that God reveals to us, it will give us success. This generation are willing to press in and receive. We will learn to overcome and we will learn to prosper.
Prospering is not just about financial things: the word means ‘to succeed to the highest level’. And we need to succeed to the highest level in the spiritual as well as in the natural realm. If we are receiving wisdom and revelation to the highest level, then as a result of that we will be prosperous and successful. Everything around us may be falling apart, and it will do so when the world’s systems crash, but we need to be able to operate in God’s systems, in God’s kingdom.
The financial system is just one example of this, in which we may well need to learn to do miracles and to multiply things as Jesus did. Jesus told Peter to find a coin in a fish’s mouth to pay their taxes. There may be occasions when we too can do something like that and supernaturally find finance. And we must stop saying, ‘Oh, but that was Jesus’. Everything Jesus did, He did as a model for what we should do. He said we would do the things He did, and greater things (John 14:12).
This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success (Joshua 1:8).
18. The Joshua Generation will know that they walk with God.
We need to walk with God as our daily lifestyle.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).
When we are walking on the path that God has prepared for us, when we are walking in our destiny, then we know God is with us. And we need to know what is our destiny, what is written on our scroll: and if we do not know, then we can ask God to show us.
Psalm 23 is a key to this lifestyle of walking with God, to finding rich nourishment in those green pastures, to seeing our true image in those quiet waters of reflection. And we need to know that even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death – which is just daily life, really – that God is with us all the way. His rod and His staff (His word spoken to us and His Spirit leading us), they comfort us. He anoints us; our cup overflows. I want to encourage you to get hold of this psalm, to meditate on it and draw out the truth from it; because God is with us, and His goodness and mercy and lovingkindness will follow us, and will be identifying features of the way we live our lives.
19. The Joshua Generation will be equipped to prepare provisions, to live by faith.
Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, saying, “Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you are to cross this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you, to possess it” (Joshua 1:11).
We have to be able to teach people to live under the provision of God. Each one of us is responsible to possess our own inheritance. We each need to be equipped with the weapons we will need, the revelation we need, the lifestyle we need. God will provide everything we need to take the land, to take possession of all that He intends for us and has promised to us. We need to know how to access that provision, to take hold of it for ourselves, and to teach others to do the same.
20. The Joshua Generation will equip the people to be consecrated (or sanctified) – set apart, dedicated and holy.
Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5).
This is where many of us are in the process. When Israel were at Gilgal they dealt with the things from the past, embraced fresh revelation of the truths they had lost sight of, and were set apart for the purposes of God for their generation.
Do you want to hear ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’? Do you want it said of you that, like David, you served the purpose of God in your generation? I do. I want to serve the purpose of God in this generation that I am called to be part of, and I believe that God wants to raise up a whole people who desire to do the same.
Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.
We are halfway through this mini-series on the Joshua Generation.
Let’s remember the questions we are asking:
Are you ready to be part of the Joshua generation?
Are you ready to be equipped by the Joshua generation?
If so, I urge you to get hold of these things and press in.
And over the next few weeks, we will look at the next 20 characteristics and begin to press into those too.