little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land.

Exodus 23   Conquest of the Land

²⁰ “Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. ²¹ Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. ²² But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. ²³ For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them. ²⁴ You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their sacred pillars in pieces. ²⁵ But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst. ²⁶ There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. ²⁷ I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸ I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. ²⁹ I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. ³⁰ I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land. ³¹ I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you. ³² You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. ³³ They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

There are a few things I want to give as a backdrop for what God impressed on me from this brief portion of today's daily Old Testament reading in the One Year Bible(link available on the links page of this site). First let's remember the timeline of the text. God has delivered the nation of Israel from their captivity and bondage in Egypt. God promised to take these people to a promised land and to give them that land as their possession and inheritance. We know that the Israelites will end up wondering in the wilderness for forty years before that promise is fulfilled. That however was not God's intention. In today's text God lays out the plan for the taking and occupying of the promised land. It was only because of the unfaithfulness of the Jewish people that it ended up taking forty years.

The second thing I want to point out is that in many ways the journey to the promise and inheritance of the Israelites serves as an illustration to us as we seek to obtain and possess what God has promised us through Christ. We have at minimum a threefold inheritance. We have the promise of eternal life in Christ, our future inheritance. We also have a dual inheritance which we are to possess now in this time. The first is the abundant life Jesus says He came to give us.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly(John 10:10)     Abundant life is to live in and possess all the benefits of the kingdom of heaven here and now. 

For the nation of Israel, their inheritance was the land. For us the other part of our inheritance is to share with God in the harvest of souls. God has called us to proclaim the kingdom of heaven and the salvation of Christ to the nations. He promises to give us, those nations for Christ, as our shared inheritance with Him.

Having said all that, here is what stood out to me in today's text. After laying out both His promise and the Israelites responsibility, God says this about the process of taking possession of the land.    I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸ I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. ²⁹ I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. ³⁰ I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land.

God says He will drive them out little by little until you become fruitful and take possession of the land. Those who believe that we are to possess all That God has promised us  sometimes wonder why we don't experience the fullness of God's promise to us. Why don't we walk in all the authority and power Jesus has given us? He said Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.(John 14:12)  Jesus healed the sick, , caused the lame to walk , the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. He cast out demons, calmed stormy seas and raised the dead back to life. If we are to do the works He did and greater works, if that is part of our promise and inheritance in Him, then why is it not our experience? Could it be that we don't possess the fullness of the promise because we haven't possessed what God has given us? God says He will give the Israelites their inheritance little by little, until they are fruitful and take possession of the land. If we want to take possession of the inheritance of the works of Christ we need to possess what He has given us. We want to raise the dead, open blind eyes, see the lame walk, speak to the power of darkness that brings cancer and tell it to go in Jesus name. We wonder why we don't have that authority, why we aren't walking in our inheritance. Could it be because God wants us to possess it little by little, to become fruitful in what He has given us? How can we expect to walk in the promise of authority over sickness and death if we are not fruitful in our authority over headaches?  Jesus teaches us a kingdom priciple in the parable of the talants in Matthew 25:23 He says

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'     We need to be faithful and fruitful in little things if we expect greater things.

Before the Moses and the Israelites were promise the inheritance of the land, it was given and promised to Abraham. This is the account of God's promise to Abraham from Genesis 13.

¹⁴ The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; ¹⁵ for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. ¹⁶ I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. ¹⁷ Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you.”

God told Abraham first to look and see all that was to be his. He said all the land you see I will give to your descendants forever. God then told Abraham to walk the land through its length and breadth. Abraham had to walk in the promise to possess it.

We have seen all that God has promised to give us. We see it in His word. Some have seen it also in dreams and visions. There is a great wave of revival, renewal and God's power that is coming. It is part of our inheritance. We WILL do the works that Jesus did. Nations will come into the kingdom receiving Christ as Lord and Savior. It is our inheritance. God wants us to possess it. To be fruitful in it. We need to walk in our inheritance to possess it. Walking happens one step at a time. Little by little, walking being fruitful, taking possession of all that God has promised.

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit forgive me for the times when I have questioned why it seems that I don't possess the promise You have given me. I choose now and from this time forward to begin to walk in the fullness of my inheritance in You. Step by step and little by little, I will possess the land and be fruitful in it as You drive out my enemies before me. Thank You. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, in and through my life, as it is in heaven.   Amen