Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

"Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go."¹

When Moses died, God appointed Joshua to be the new leader of Israel. One of the very first things God did was to give Joshua a goal—a goal to claim and conquer the Promised Land. God spelled out the northern, southern, eastern and western borders so the goal was very specific. Joshua knew exactly what he needed to do.

God also told Joshua that he had given him, and the ancient Israelites this land—but they still had to go and conquer it. It wasn't handed to them on a silver platter. They had to battle every inch of the way to conquer it. However, had God not given the land to them, they wouldn't have been able to conquer it.

Furthermore, God promised Joshua good success providing he and the people fully obeyed all the directions and laws God had given to them through Moses.

It has been noted that "success is the ability to embrace a worthwhile goal and then employ all of your powers for the achievement of that goal." I'm sure Joshua would have agreed with this definition of success.

As we shared yesterday, God has a specific plan and goal for you and me too. It's up to us to seek God to discover what that plan and goal is. And then it's up to us, with God's help, to "take action and go get it!"

Any worthwhile goal will also be a challenge for us to fulfill. God isn't going to hand it to us on a silver platter. However, as God promised to be with Joshua and help him, he will also be with us and help us; that is, providing we "employ all of our powers to achieve that goal" and live and work in harmony with God's will and obey his Word, the Bible. Only then will we, too, have good success. Of that we can be confident.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank You that as You promised to be with Joshua You will also be with me as long as I live in harmony with Your Word and Your will. Show me specifically what You want me to be and do, and give me the wisdom, faith, courage, and determination to work to fulfill that goal, so that I, too, will experience Your blessing and good success. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus's name, amen."

1. Joshua 1:7 (NIV).

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