THIS LAND

When I speak of land in this situation, I'm thinking more in terms of a promise of God as it applies to an individual. This would be the promise land on a personal basis.

And drawing from the idea of the promise land there are several things we can appreciate from the experience of the people of Israel. Some bible interpreters have treated the promise land, which was Palestine, as a symbol of heaven.

But I don't think that is true since there are no enemies occupying Heaven and you don't have to fight to occupy the land. If anything, the promise land is that place of promise given by the Lord to a person or group of people. It is conditional in the sense that you have to claim it by faith, which can also mean you have to work in order to realize the promise.

God gave the land of Palestine to the people of Israel, but if they wanted to occupy it they were going to have to fight for it. He didn't just make it easy.

True the land did have a bounty of opportunities such a very fertile ground, but I think for the sake of testing their faith he didn't let them just claim the land. The result was unfortunately instead of doing what God said in claiming the land, they didn't rid the land of his enemies. In fact they even were seduced by false gods of the other people. So by not doing as God instructed the consequence was that some of the tribes never fully occupied all the land promised. And they ended up being corrupted by the very evils they were meant to destroy

This land for any believer is the place of promise as it applies to us. It can be a place, it can be a calling or any number of other items. But we do know to occupy and claim it, God will normally keep it in the realm of a test of our faith for our own benefit.

And along the way there will be the obstacles. They may even be the type that don't appear as a threat, but are so subtle in their corruption.

Perhaps the most important truth in it all is that whatever is the land, it is one that God chooses and gives us. It is never one of our preference.

That is part of his sovereignty and it is so easy to forget that what is our promise land is does come from him. Perhaps that is why the struggle. It is his way of keeping us from becoming too complacent in our occupying of the land.

Hopefully we can learn the lesson that the people of Israel failed to remember in that regard. For there is nothing sadder than to experience the blessing of a promise land that the Lord must take away later because we forgot it came from him.

I struggle myself to always keep in focus that truth. And I pray that God doesn't have to take away the promise because I get sidetracked in the process. But then I do continue to trust to him for my survival and that after all is the part that will keep him most in our hearts.