Wherever You Set Your Foot (1:3-4)I've always been fascinated by God's promise in Joshua 1:3: "I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses." God recalls to Joshua's mind the general promise that Moses had announced to the whole people in Deuteronomy 11:24: "Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the western sea."
What does this mean? It means that where Joshua and the people actually went, physically, God would give it to them. We see the promise fulfilled in Joshua where the people won battle after battle in campaigns in both the south and north of Palestine. Where they actually went, God gave them the land. But where they didn't go, the Canaanites continued to hide out and harass them.
Caleb remembered this promise, too, when he got ready to attack the fortified city of Hebron at the age of 85: "So on that day Moses swore to me, 'The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly'" (Joshua 14:9, citing Moses' promise in Deuteronomy 1:36).
I think this principle also applies in other realms of our life. We want everything brought to us on a silver platter, but God tells us to go and claim it personally. We have to go out to get it, and then God will give it to us. Spiritually, we want to grow. How will we do that? Passively? No, by believing the promises of God and desiring to see their fulfillment in our own lives. That desire will help us press through in faith and prayer, and actually grow in the Lord. He will give it to us, but we need to find a way to actually follow him there.
God outlines the physical territory which he is giving to Israel -- a huge land: "from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates -- all the Hittite country -- to the Great Sea on the west" (Joshua 1:4). In fact, during Joshua's time they never set their foot on all this. Most was under Israel's control by the time of David and Solomon, but then it was lost again through disobedience and unbelief.
There are great tracts of "land" God would give you that are now occupied by the enemy. They don't belong to the enemy. They belong to you. God has given them to you. There's a saying in legal circles: "Possession is 9/10ths of the law." The enemy has "squatter's rights," but only that. When you -- with God's help -- push the enemy off your inheritance, you can possess it, and experience its blessings. The book of Joshua can be a book of Conquest for you spiritually if you'll let it be.