We are looking in more detail at selected characteristics of the Joshua Generation. All those characteristics come out of relationship: they are characteristics of sons, not slaves.
Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and tutors… But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son… so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God (Gal 4:1-7).
If we are to have an inheritance, we need to know and have a relationship with the Father. Jesus secured that relationship for us, and we need to enter into it. We are heirs, those who inherit the promises of God, but if we remain as spiritual children we will not be able to handle all God has for us. Unless we mature, we will be no better off than slaves.
14. The Joshua Generation will be filled with the spirit of wisdom
Now Joshua the son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; and the sons of Israel listened to him and did as the LORD had commanded Moses (Deut 34:9).
Wisdom is not just something that we can pick up along the way as we go through life. Wisdom is imparted by the spirit of wisdom.
The seven spirits of God
The guardians and tutors mentioned by Paul in Galatians are there to equip God’s people to act as sons; to explain what it means to be a son; to teach us what it is to have an understanding of the Father’s heart, just as they did with Jesus.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord (Isa 11:2).
…Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne (Rev 1:4)
The seven spirits of God are our guardians and tutors. They are not on His throne; they are not the Holy Spirit; they are heavenly creatures, created to bring God’s people into sonship. They have a deep understanding of the ways of God. If we are willing, the seven spirits of God are going to have much more to do with us in future than ever before. We can engage with them to teach us, because we need what they can bring.
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).
On the east side of the Jordan, before they crossed over into the Promised Land, they were called upon to make a decision: whether they would consecrate themselves, set themselves apart, from everything they had already gone through, into something completely new.
Now the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you” (Josh 3:7).
God will acknowledge and affirm the Joshua Generation. He will do things through them; but not the way He has done them in the past. God would be with Joshua just as He had been with Moses, but actually He was about to begin to do something new.
You shall, moreover, command the priests who are carrying the ark of the covenant, saying, ‘When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan’” (Josh 3:8).
Coming to the borders of the Promised Land they were faced with a very large river, in flood. It looked likely, from a natural point of view, that it would stop them entering in.
So they needed a supernatural answer.
Then Joshua said to the sons of Israel, “Come here, and hear the words of the Lord your God.” Joshua said, “By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will assuredly dispossess from before you the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Jebusite” (Josh 3:9-10).
All these ‘-ites’ had possession of Israel’s inheritance. For us, they represent mindsets, patterns of iniquity, or anything else that prevents us receiving our inheritance. We may have tried to remove those things before, from the outside in, but God promises that He is in us and can remove them from the inside out.
Pruning
In a vision I saw a tree with fruit on it. God came, pruned all the branches and removed all the fruit. He said ‘I am now going to deal with and fertilise the roots’.
He is removing all the things we have seen as fruit, maybe miracles and healings, supernatural provision: all the things God has done for us in the past. He wants to deal with the roots, to fertilise them so that the tree produces a new form of fruit. We are going to see miracles, but happening in a new way.
All the familiar miracles of God’s provision stopped when they crossed over the Jordan: manna, quails, water out of the rock, guidance by the pillar of cloud and fire, their clothes not wearing out. God had been treating them as children, doing everything for them, but now it was time for them to mature.
If we are entering into a new dimension of God in the Spirit, we cannot expect Him to keep on doing things exactly as He has done them in the past. So often we pray, ‘God, do this, do that’, or ‘Lord, heal this person’, and He looks down and smiles: ’I told you to do that. You can do that miracle. You are my children. You have an inheritance, to be like Me and do the things that I do’.
When the old ways stop, if we continue to try to operate in them, we will begin to find that there is no anointing in them. God is taking us from a place of being children in our understanding and encouraging us to mature into our responsibility as sons.
Spies
Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly… They said to Joshua, “Surely the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover, all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before us” (Joshua 2:2, 24).
The enemy is fearful of us. That is why he tries so hard to keep us from realising who we are. He wants us to remain as children, because he knows he is going to be in real trouble if we mature as sons. He has no power over us other than that which we give him.
Since August 2010 I have been equipping and sending spies into the new land of our spiritual inheritance; firstly here at Freedom Church, and more recently around the world. Some of you are those spies. You have gone in to a new spiritual dimension and seen your spiritual inheritance. You have experienced the realms of heaven. You have seen something of mountains in heaven, courts in heaven, rivers in heaven. You have experienced these things first hand; perhaps not yet in their fullness, but you know they are there and waiting for you to move into them. You are like the spies coming back with a good report.
Consecrate yourselves
Some, like Joshua, Caleb and the spies have already been forerunners. Now it is time for the rest to go in. But 2½ tribes, the Reubenites (passing up their inheritance as descendants of the firstborn), Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, chose to make their home in the old and familiar rather than in the Land of Promise.
Who is willing to cross over Jordan leaving the old revelation and old ways behind?
Who is willing to separate themselves from their old identity as slaves?
Who is willing to leave the childish things of immaturity behind?
We can live in the new land of new spiritual revelation, new methods, and new authority; but the transition from the old to the new is always a battle.
Is anyone willing to consecrate themselves and cross the Jordan, to take personal responsibility as mature heirs and not children? If so, let’s step into the mobile court of God together.
The mobile court
The mobile court of God is here. Around us is a cloud of witnesses, here on our behalf. The seven spirits of God are here to affirm us in our identity. Jesus is here as our advocate.
We are coming to face our accusers: the strongholds and the familiar spirits which are behind the mindsets that would keep us in slavery, keep us in childhood, keep us from our inheritance. We are going to consecrate ourselves and separate ourselves from those mindsets.
I step into the place of responsibility in the governmental mobile court
I accept responsibility as a priest of my own life
I take the covering of the word of God
And I place it over my head as a covering of Your love.
I agree with my accusers
That I have operated with a slavery mentality and an orphan spirit
Father, I accept responsibility for thinking and acting like a slave and an orphan
I repent and renounce slavery
And I choose to forgive and release all my previous generations
For giving me an inheritance of slavery.
I come under the covering of your word, blood and presence
I ask you to judge me according to the covering of your love for my life
Judge this slavery and orphan spirit in me
To destroy its yoke and power over my life.
I stand cleansed, righteous, innocent
I receive divorce papers from its influence
I confess that I am divorced and separated
From slavery and its influence in my life.
I release judgment over my accusers
The familiar spirits behind the strongholds, speculations and mindsets of slavery
I release divinely power judgment to demolish all slavery in my life – body, soul and spirit.
I administer judgment and justice as a son
Into every circumstance and area of influence in my life affected by this issue of slavery.
I consecrate myself as Your son
I receive Your inheritance as a son
I declare myself ready to leave the old ways behind me
And cross over into a new land.