God is calling a new generation of forerunners like Joshua and Caleb to rise up, take hold of what belongs to them in God’s kingdom, and bless others by sharing this revelation and leading them in too.
Will you be one of them?
The Joshua generation has an inheritance that is both earthly and heavenly. We need the heavenly in order to be able to manifest the earthly. The other way round, it is a real struggle. Our inheritance is to act as gateways, bringing heaven to earth through our lives. Our status as royal priests enables us: as kings we have authority and as priests we have access to the holy things of God.
Fame
So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land (Joshua 6:27).
Some of us are beginning to be well known in certain Christian circles already, in a way that we were not just a few years ago. But when the Joshua generation start actually doing the signs, wonders and miracles God is calling us to do, once we set up the Cities of Refuge to which people will run for help and protection when everything falls apart, the world (not just the rest of the church) will begin to take notice.
We need to be ready for the media pressure. When people are raised from the dead, when fire falls from heaven, it will be a global phenomenon, because these are the days when ‘many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase’ (Dan12:4). It will be on social media and YouTube within minutes, not hours.
If we are not operating in righteousness and justice, if we are not truly set apart in holiness, then we risk being easy meat for the world’s media. You only have to look at the Lakeland Revival to see what happens once those areas of unrighteousness are revealed. The spotlight of the secular press and social media is unrelenting.
Any skeletons in the closet will be exposed, we can be sure of that. So we must deal with what we know is in our lives, deal with what God reveals to us, make sure there is nothing hidden, nothing for anyone to find out and discover, nothing we are trying to conceal. We all have history, we all have a past, and we have all messed up. But if we hide that from each other and from the world, then we are needlessly exposing ourselves to danger. The enemy can use what is in the dark; that environment suits him very well. We need to make sure everything is brought into the light.
In all that God is doing, in the power of God that is coming, He must have the glory. The heavenly elders cast their crowns before God, and we are to redirect any honour we receive back to Him. Past generations have failed in this because they have taken glory for themselves, promoted themselves, instead of bringing glory to God.
It is all about Him. It is not about us. Let’s be sure there is nothing of ‘us’ standing in the way of God’s glory.
A radical stand against sin
And it is not only because of the world that we need to be uncompromisingly holy. Let the fear (reverence and awe, not terror) of the Lord be our strong motivation:
Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the LORD, the God of Israel, has said, “There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst.” … It shall be that the one who is taken with the things under the ban shall be burned with fire, he and all that belongs to him, because he has transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he has committed a disgraceful thing in Israel’ (Joshua 7:13,15).
God wants a holy people. If there are things in our midst that He has called us to lay down or deal with, and we are not doing as He says, then we are inviting defeat both individually and corporately.
Please understand, under the New Covenant no-one is going to be burned at the stake for this. If we get it wrong, if we make a mistake, if we sin, then the fire of God’s presence comes to purify and refine us, not to kill or destroy us:
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
Out of His kingdom
The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness (Matt 13:41).
I have pointed out before that Jesus says ‘out of His kingdom’ and not ‘out of the world’, and we have seen these angels here at Freedom many times in recent years. He wants us to be pure and holy so that we do not live in bondage to sin, death, oppression, or poverty, but overcome them.
Our relationship with God is the most important thing in our life. Then, when we agree to be forerunners and accept responsibility to do what He calls us to do, we will not be afraid of the cost which goes with that responsibility.
The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).
No compromise. The Joshua generation will be ruthless in pursuing, rooting out and destroying whatever is in opposition to God’s will, and they will teach the following generation to do the same.
There will be no end to the increase of His government and peace,
to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
from then on and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this (Isa 9:7).
Are we willing to step into our inheritance?
Are we willing to accept and embrace our destiny?