Failure to Utterly Drive Them Out
This
was a failure on the part of Joshua and the children of Israel to enter into
the complete victory God had promised them.
They failed to take full possession of the Promised Land.
The whole experience of the children of Israel coming out of
the bondage of Egypt, passing through the wilderness, and coming into the
Promised Land can be viewed as a spiritual allegory. It is representative of us
as Christians...
All the areas of your flesh (maybe it is a bad temper, maybe it is anger, maybe it is pride, or lust, or whatever) have to be dealt with in your life. God wants to give you complete and full victory over every area of your flesh. He has provided all that you need. But many times, just as the children of Israel failed to utterly drive out their enemies and those enemies return to cause future trouble, we too can fail to drive out these “inhabitants” of our hearts. Their failure to drive out the enemy utterly worked to their own disadvantage. So many times in our own lives, those areas where we fail to go in and lay claim to our victory in Christ are the very areas where we find ourselves attacked by Satan in the future, and oftentimes defeated in the future because we failed to fully take the promise that God has given to us and lay claim to the full victory that we can have as we walk in the Spirit.
The failure of complete victory is one of the sad and tragic notes of Joshua’s leadership. They did not utterly drive out the inhabitants. They did not fully take the land. They did not conquer all that God had given, and it later worked to their own harm. So let us not follow after the same example, but let us press into our walk in the Spirit, entering into His fullness by conquering every aspect of our fleshly nature.
Don’t
put limitations on your limitless God.
He is not limited by your fears or failures. And don't let a single inhabitant remain in the "land." None of them are as innocent or as impotent as we may perceive. Failure to utterly drive them all out will work to your disadvantage. He can conquer every enemy in “the land!” So, press on and utterly drive out the
unwanted inhabitants of your heart by the power of His Spirit.
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