Be firm and steadfast

"No one can withstand you while you live. I will be with you as I was with Moses: I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be firm and steadfast, so that you may give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers I would give them. Above all, be firm and steadfast, taking care to observe the entire law which my servant Moses enjoined on you. Do not swerve from it either to the right or to the left, that you may succeed wherever you go. Keep this book of the law on your lips. Recite it by day and by night, that you may observe carefully all that is written in it; then you will successfully attain your goal. I command you: be firm and steadfast! Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD, your God, is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1: 5 - 9)

Like Joshua, we all have our mission on earth.  It may not be as great as the mission entrusted by God to Joshua.  The important thing is that it is our own mission and if we want to succeed in it, the above word of God to Joshua applies too in our own case.  What impresses me in the above powerful message is the number of times Joshua is urged to be “firm and steadfast.”  If you have experienced any major challenge or crisis in your life, you would appreciate the necessity of being firm and steadfast.  You may ask the question, “firm and steadfast about what?”  The answer could be:  Firm and steadfast about your purpose, your trust in God, your trust in the Holy Spirit embedded in you.  Great trial could shake one to the depths of one’s being.  This could leave one uncertain of one’s belief.  Besides, the God we place our trust in is one big Mystery.  “My thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are my ways your ways.”  Another way of saying this is “With God everything is possible.”

I have found the above scripture great help in times of need.  This is why it is one of my Promised Land scriptures.

The Promised Land

"Be careful to observe all the commandments I enjoin on you today, that you may live and increase, and may enter in and possess the land which the LORD promised on oath to your fathers. Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments. 1 He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD. The clothing did not fall from you in tatters, nor did your feet swell these forty years. So you must realize that the LORD, your God, disciplines you even as a man disciplines his son. "Therefore, keep the commandments of the LORD, your God, by walking in his ways and fearing him. For the LORD, your God, is bringing you into a good country, a land with streams of water, with springs and fountains welling up in the hills and valleys, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, of olive trees and of honey, a land where you can eat bread without stint and where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones contain iron and in whose hills you can mine copper. But when you have eaten your fill, you must bless the LORD, your God, for the good country he has given you." (Deuteronomy 8: 1 - 10)

Before the Journey, I read and reread the above scripture.  What is today is true in accordance with the above prediction.   What will come will be will be incomparable in beauty, grandeur and scope in the fullness of time.  We are aliens here on earth.  Our permanent residence is in heaven.  God gave us in the above scripture, a little window into our permanent home.  

The Lord Himself will fight for you

"But Moses answered the people, "Fear not! Stand your ground, and you will see the victory the LORD will win for you today. These Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. The LORD himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still." (Exodus 14: 13 - 14)

In the fall of 1986, the above scripture opened my eyes to the power of the word of God.  I was in a very tight corner.  I was working in Paris with Unilever as an expatriate manager.  My job was threatened and I faced an imminent cancellation of my contract. I was lying awake one night tossing on my bed, restless and sleepless when my eyes caught the above scripture.  It filled me with hope and power.  I had nobody to defend me but God alone.  And He promised to do it.  I believed it.  The result was victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.  The consequence was great faith in the power of the word of God that has lasted till today.
Thank you Holy Spirit for 1414.

Continual Guidance

“While from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears: "This is the way; walk in it," when you would turn to the right or to the left.”  (Isaiah 30: 21)

I cherish very much this promise of continual guidance.  What would you do if you know that every step you take will be guided by the Holy Spirit?  My answer is:  I will live with complete abandon, almost reckless.

His own portion

"8 When the Most High assigned the nations their heritage, when he parceled out the descendants of Adam, He set up the boundaries of the peoples after the number of the sons of God; 9 While the LORD'S own portion was Jacob, His hereditary share was Israel. 10 He found them in a wilderness, a wasteland of howling desert. He shielded them and cared for them, guarding them as the apple of his eye. 11 As an eagle incites its nestlings forth by hovering over its brood, So he spread his wings to receive them and bore them up on his pinions. 12 The LORD alone was their leader, no strange god was with him. 13 3 He had them ride triumphant over the summits of the land and live off the products of its fields, Giving them honey to suck from its rocks and olive oil from its hard, stony ground; 14 4 Butter from its cows and milk from its sheep, with the fat of its lambs and rams; Its Bashan bulls and its goats, with the cream of its finest wheat; and the foaming blood of its grapes you drank. 15 5 (So Jacob ate his fill,) the darling grew fat and frisky; you became fat and gross and gorged. They spurned the God who made them and scorned their saving Rock. 16 They provoked him with strange gods and angered him with abominable idols." Deuteronomy 32: 8-16)

Choose life

" I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." (Deuteronomy 30: 19-20)