Stake your claim!

God gave Joshua an assignment that must have brought great joy to Joshua. God appointed him to divide the land among the Israelites. That would have been good news for a couple of reasons. First of all, if God gave him instructions to divide the land, that was confirmation that God was going to defeat their enemies and give them possession of the land. But there is more reason for rejoicing.

Think about this…God gave Joshua the privilege of telling the people what they had been given as the chosen people of God.

And we can rejoice in that assignment as well because that’s exactly what God has called the leaders in His kingdom to do today. One of the most important roles teachers, preachers, ministers, and all believers have today is to tell believers what they have in Christ!

Sadly, many Christians hear more about what they lack than they do about what they have. They hear more about what they are NOT supposed to do than they do about what they CAN do through Christ. Since they don’t know what they have in Christ they spend their lives trying to get what God has already given them. We are joint heirs with Christ. Everything that He has belongs to us as well. We are complete in Him. His inheritance is our inheritance. We don’t have to wait for it and we certainly don’t have to earn it. We get it simply because we are children of God.

“16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…” Romans 8:16-17

And notice that we have already been given everything we need for life!

“2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises…” II Peter 1:2-4a


Like the Israelites, we have been given an unconditional gift from God. Through Christ, we have everything we need. Everything that Jesus has is ours; His faith, His wisdom, His strength, His power. It is all available to us. It is our Promised Land. It is our inheritance.

Everything we need for life and for living a Godly life is ours. It’s an unconditional gift of the grace of God. But just like the Israelites, whether or not we live out of the abundant life God has given us is conditional on us following His leadership all the way to the life He has for us.

So many Christians get stuck in the wilderness because they have crossed the Red Sea into salvation, but they stopped short of crossing the Jordan into God’s promised land of His abundant, victorious life. It’s ours, but we don’t live in it.

God wants us to stake our claim - take possession and live in the abundant land that He has given us as believers. We can quit walking in spiritual poverty and live out of the riches of the Kingdom of God!