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An Inheritance of Grace

Josh 18:4

4 Give out from among you three men for each tribe: and I will send them, and they shall rise, and go through the land, and describe it according to the inheritance of them; and they shall come again to me. (KJV)

The land has been subdued, but before all the people can possess their individual portions more must be known. Joshua sends men to survey the land so that every man, woman, and child of Israel may ultimately have a personal share in the bounty. Some must go before and walk the land. They must endure hardship, and peril, but so great is their desire to obey the Master and so ardent their love for the people that they venture early into that place to measure and describe the inheritance.

How like these early pioneers we are! By the word of God, we venture out daily into the inheritance that lies before us. We find it as our fathers found it. There are deep wells of compassion and love that Christ has opened unto us. We find strong walls of protection and peace. Jesus has raised them that our souls might be safe from the prowling lion.

There is a bountiful harvest there of every good thing. Our blessing is the greater because we have not dug the wells, nor raised the walls. We did not plant the seed whose mature ripeness we are invited to enjoy. It is Christ. He has done it all!

Discordant voices tell us that our inheritance is, in fact, a land whose cities we must build of our own labor. If we would drink of eternal life then it is we who must burrow, and dredge. Our lips, they say, will never taste the sweetness of the grape that we do not plant and tend. We cannot follow such as would tell us this for such are ones who have never seen the land! They have not explored the paths of faith. They have not walked in obedience the road that Christ has both made and trod before us.

George Moore

Elder Emeritus