Yesterday was the last day of a thirteen and a half month Interim Pastorate. What I tried to say to the people about the future of their church, is a good thought today to individuals about their own future. Joshua was forty years old when the Israelites left Egypt. When Moses went up on Mt. Sinai, Joshua went part of the way with him. Later, Joshua was one of the spies who went to see Canaan. The other spies gave a bad report. But Joshua and Caleb said that the Israelites should trust God and move into Canaan. Forty years later, Joshua and Caleb were the only two Egypt-born Israelites to move into Canaan. Having heard from God, Joshua spoke to the people, \u201cYou have not passed this way before\u201d (Joshua 3:4). There was no attempt to move the people by things familiar to them. Just the opposite was true. This was a new way. It is so different for us. We try hard to assure people that the future will not change much. It will be comfortable, known. But the future will be different. So, Joshua says, \u201cSanctify yourselves\u201d (Joshua 3:5). Sanctify means to set apart, in this case, for service to God. It is the only way to effectively serve God. God needed no half-hearted, wishy-washy, semi-committed followers. The same is true today. God needs totally committed, sold-out followers, separated from worldliness, and sanctified to Godliness. And the result? \u201cThe Lord will do wonders among you\u201d (Joshua 3:5). This was God\u2019s promise delivered by God\u2019s messenger to God\u2019s people. Once sanctified, they would experience the \u201cwonders\u201d of God. And so it was: they wondrously overthrew powerful Jericho – and then they forgot and were defeated at tiny Ai. The \u201cwonders\u201d of God are done among us, not for us. How excited would you be over your future if you knew the Lord would do \u201cwonders\u201d with you? So, \u201csanctify yourself\u201d and see.<\/p>\n
Join me this week in praying for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Pray for Tricia as she trains 100 women in how to tell their story and a story from the Book in order to share their faith with others.
\n\u2022 Pray for Lynn and Sandra as they travel by car from Mexico City to Texas on Monday and return on August 22-23.
\n\u2022 Pray for Melinda as she works in an English Camp for Czech youth.
\n\u2022 Pray for the children\u2019s day camp, Aug. 17 \u2013 21 in Poroscovo, Moldova.
\n\u2022 Pray for preparation for the upcoming Vision Tour in Vancouver, Canada on Sept. 12 \u2013 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday was the last day of a thirteen and a half month Interim Pastorate. What I tried to say to the people about the future of their church, is a good thought today to individuals about their own future. Joshua was forty years old when the Israelites left Egypt. When Moses went up on Mt….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}