Truth:God has a purpose for your life. The purpose He has for your life falls within His ultimate purpose to glorify His name by advancing His kingdom. To fulfill God’s purposes, you must embrace God’s pattern. To embrace God’s pattern requires obedience and cooperation.

Response:How current are you in your obedience to God? Is there anything on a “waiting list,” i.e. “I’ll be obedient when….” What is one thing you’re really struggling to be obedient to God with? Joshua shows us that our source of power for seizing God’s promises is his presence in and with us. Pray for the Spirit of God to fill you with his power to be obedient.

Truth:To embrace God’s pattern we must submit to God’s authority. If we are going to be successful in fulfilling God’s purposes for our church and our individual lives, then we must have a relentless obedience to God’s word. This does not mean simply hearing God’s word; it means obeying God’s word. We cannot force God’s word to fit our convictions or conditions. We must be courageous enough to obey God’s word in spite of the cost.

Response:How does the centrality of God’s word make a difference in your life? Have you forced God’s word to fit your theological, political, or ethical convictions? Have you forced God’s word to fit your personal, career, or financial conditions? Examine your life and pray for courage from the Spirit to give up these convictions and conditions in order to be obedient to God and his word.

Truth:To embrace God’s pattern we must cooperate with God’s people. The people of Israel would only be successful in fulfilling God’s purpose if they cooperated with one another. Cooperation requires humble dependency, selfless ministry, and gospel unity. We need the body of Christ.

Response:Do you see yourself as a part of the community of Christ? Do you feel the responsibility to help your brothers and sisters within that community? How would you rate yourself in the area of being regularly engaged in corporate life? Pray that God would give you courage to take advantage of the opportunities you have to become deeply embedded in the community of Christ.

Family Response

Truth:As Pastor Rickey led us through Joshua 1:10-18, he focused on the call to obey God’s Word and cooperate with God’s people. In addition to this, I was struck by something else I heard repeatedly. It is a transformative truth on its own, but it is magnified in its transformative power by its repetition. “God has purpose for you. God has purpose for you.”

Response:  I sat listening and wondering how many adults in the room were being washed clean of the lies spoken over them for decades—lies of worthlessness, lies of uselessness, lies of purposelessness. Then, it hit me. Many of these lies took root in their childhood. What if instead of discouragement and hopelessness, we were determined to speak this truth of encouragement over our sons and daughters? “God has purpose for you.” What if we were determined to shout this truth over the lies of our culture? “God has purpose for you.” What if we tempered our frustrations and impatience in the journey of parenthood with this truth? “God has purpose for you.” It excites me to think about a generation of boys and girls growing up with the expectation of fulfilling God’s purpose for them! May this become one of those phrases that your children can finish for you! “I know, I know, God has purpose for me.”

Prepare for Sunday, May 12, 2019