don't leave your chips on the table

The Word for today:

Joshua 2

mark this:  Joshua 1:3 / ESV

Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.

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Note:  If a sense of deja vu is upon you, you are not imagining things!  This article was previously posted on September 1--for all of two minutes, the length of time it took our ever-alert readership to notice that the article was not in accordance with the reading schedule!  The first to inform us of this error was the legendary Sara (read more about her here!)  to whom we devoted the final article on 2 Thessalonians (which put us back on track.)

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God's Word is a promissory note:  
"Upon redemption the bearer is entitled to __________________."

The word redemption, when used in its commercial sense, occurs when a paper promise is exchanged for the real thing. 

The children of Israel were promised a land.  God said that it was theirs when they stepped into it:

I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.  (Joshua 1:3 / NIV)

We are redeemed as we enter into God's promises.  God's promises become real when we take hold of them.  Until we do, they remain promises only--like poker chips.  They sit there, waiting to be real-ized, to be redeemed for real value.  They are worth nothing if they're left on the table.  So we've got to transact them, enact them, turn them in--in order to turn into them.

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The book of Joshua is about a man who turned the paper Word of God into something real. 

Joshua is a type--a prophetic "picture"--of Yeshua of Nazareth, who would turn God's Word into flesh.  (The names Joshua and Jesus derive from the same Hebrew name, Yeshua, which means "The Lord Saves.")

Like Yeshua, Son of God and Yeshua, son of Nun (1) we are to make the Word real and living in our own lives. 

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My entire Bible education consists of 1,300 half-hour lessons taught to me by the late, great Dr. J. Vernon McGee, the greatest Bible educator since Jesus (2).

Doc McGee often prayed this prayer before he began a lesson:

"Our gracious Father God, make real and living thy Word in our hearts today, for we pray in Jesus' name.  Amen."

Pray that prayer!  Then go become the answer to that prayer!  Don't leave your promises on paper or your chips on the table.  Transact them; enact them; cash them in.

(And come back tomorrow for a helpful example of how we take possession, by faith.)

  

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(1) see Joshua 1:1

(2)  Don't despair!  Even though "Doc" McGee is "late," he's still great--and he's still teaching! Just click ttb.org today.  1300 lessons later--every day for 5 straight years--you will have attained the greatest Bible education the world has to offer.  There is no seminary or university Bible degree that comes close (in my decidedly un-humble opinion.)