Ⅱ
“No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you nor forsake you. Be strong and take courage, for you will cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them. Only be strong and very courageous, being certain to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you. Do not turn away from it to the right or to the left, that you may have success wherever you go”—Josh. 1:5-7:
A
For Jehovah to tell Joshua that, as He was with Moses, He would be with Joshua was a great matter; at one point the Lord told Moses, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exo. 33:14); because Moses was a person very near to God’s heart and according to God’s heart, he had God’s presence to a full extent.
B
In the New Testament the presence of Jesus is Emmanuel, meaning “God with us” (Matt. 1:23; 18:20; 28:20); Christ as the Spirit of reality, the life-giving Spirit, is Emmanuel, the presence of the Divine Trinity in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22).
C
We should continually exercise our spirit of faith to be strong and very courageous to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ, signified by the good land, as the pledge of our inheritance today, which is a sample of our full and eternal inheritance of the wonderful Christ in the next age and for eternity—2 Cor. 4:13; Eph. 1:14, 18; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5-6a.
D
We should take the Lord as our strength and our courage to magnify Christ under any circumstances, which is to experience Him with the topmost enjoyment (Phil. 1:20; 4:11-13); we can always declare, “Jehovah is my light and my salvation; / Whom shall I fear? / Jehovah is the strength of my life; / Whom shall I dread?”—Psa. 27:1.
E
Death once reigned over us (Rom. 5:14), and we were under its slavery, continually fearing death; since the Lord destroyed the devil and nullified death (Heb. 2:14-15; 2 Tim. 1:10), we now have no more fear of death and are released from its slavery.
F
“Jehovah will not abandon His people, / Nor will He forsake His inheritance” (Psa. 94:14); “The Lord is my Helper, and I will not fear. What shall man do to me?” (Heb. 13:6); “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31).
G
We need to be those who fan into flame our God-given spirit, which is not a spirit of cowardice but of power and of love and of sobermindedness (2 Tim. 1:6-7); our feelings are altogether a lie; we should always believe and declare that we are strong, that we are full of love, and that we are very clear; then we can “be strong and take courage” (Josh. 1:6) to enter into and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land.
H
We should not turn away “to the right or to the left” (v. 7) from the holy Word concerning the heavenly vision of God’s eternal economy, so that we may have success wherever we go by walking worthily of the Lord “to please Him in all things” (Col. 1:10); thus, before our translation we can obtain the testimony that we have been “well pleasing to God” by continually believing that God is and we are not (Heb. 11:5-6; Gen. 5:21-24).
Morning Nourishment
Josh. 1:5-7 No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life….I will be with you; I will not fail you nor forsake you. Be strong and take courage, for you will cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them….Do not turn away from [the law] to the right or to the left, that you may have success wherever you go.God’s promise first was that no man would be able to stand before Joshua all the days of his life (Josh. 1:5a). Second, God’s promise was that He would be with Joshua and would not fail him or forsake him (v. 5b). In verse 9c God said to Joshua, “Jehovah your God is with you wherever you go.”
First, God encouraged Joshua to be strong and to be bold (vv. 6a, 7a, 9a). Joshua was to be bold not in himself but in the moving and operating God…. Next, God encouraged Joshua not to be afraid or dismayed (v. 9b)…. Furthermore, God told Joshua that he would have success wherever he went (vv. 7c, 8b).
The children of Israel agreed with Joshua in taking God’s commission. Their response [in verses 16 through 18] implied their willingness, their readiness, and their being in one accord not only with Joshua but also with Jehovah their God as expressed by their blessing of Joshua in the name of their God. They were one with the Triune God in the great wheel of His economy for the purpose of gaining the good land. (Life-study of Joshua, pp. 10, 12)
Today’s Reading
Second Timothy 1:6-7 indicates that we need to fan our spirit into flame. In these verses Paul says, “For which cause I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness.”. . .Our God-given spirit is what we must fan into flame. We have to fan our spirit. At times you may suffer to such an extent that you may begin to doubt God and doubt your salvation. But regardless of how much you doubt, one thing is within you that you cannot deny—your spirit. You are not like a beast. You have a spirit. This spirit is a trouble to Satan. Regardless of how much work Satan has done and is still doing, there is one thing within us that he cannot touch—our spirit. We need to fan our spirit into flame.If you want to fan your spirit into flame, you need to open up your mouth, open up your heart, and open up your spirit. You need to open these three layers of your being. You have to use your mouth to say, “O Lord Jesus.” But then you have to go deeper by using your mouth with your heart to say, “O Lord Jesus.” Then you need to go even deeper by using your mouth with your heart and with your spirit to say, “O Lord Jesus.” This is to open up your spirit from deep within. Then the fire burns. If you are down, you should call “O Lord Jesus” again and again from deep within with the exercise of your spirit. Then you will be up.
Quite often we are cheated and deceived by the enemy. We say that we are weak and cloudy. But when we say that we are weak, we are weak. When we say that we are cloudy, we are cloudy. On the other hand, when we say that we are strong, we are strong. When we say that we are clear, we are clear. When we say what we are, that is what we are. Do not say that you are weak. If you say that you are weak, weakness is with you. But if you say that you are strong, strength is with you. We can say that we are strong because we have the capacity. We have the capital. God gave us not a spirit of cowardice but a spirit of power, of love, and of sobermindedness. We should declare this and claim this. Then we will have it. This is our portion. This is our legal, God-appointed lot, which has been allotted to us by God. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Spirit with Our Spirit,” pp. 182-185)
Further Reading: Life-study of Joshua, msg. 2; CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Spirit with Our Spirit,” ch. 8