Principles for Taking Possession

Why, having so great and wonderful a gift as Christ as our inheritance have we not taken hold of Him as our complete delight?

Rodrigo Abarca

Reading: Joshua 14:6-15.

The land of Canaan typifies the Lord Jesus Christ in a wonderful and very complete way. The fullness of the land is Christ’s fullness, and the possession of the land is, in the same way, the full possession of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father has given us a land, an inheritance of grace, the gift of His beloved Son, so that He might be completely ours.

You know that the history of Israel was recorded so that we can, by considering it, learn from its example and obtain spiritual lessons that will be fundamental to our walk and our progress in the Lord. The whole Old Testament is a great hidden typology, in which the master key of interpretation is our Lord Jesus Christ, who gives true sense to it. When we come to the Old Testament and we go through its pages in the light of the revelation of Jesus Christ, they have new meaning for us. The Old Testament is not simply old history, it is much more than that: it is a typologically of the history of Christ and His church. Because the eternal mystery of God’s will, God’s whole purpose points from all eternity past toward Christ and toward His church.

Considering this, let us look at some related truths regarding “taking possession of the land” in Joshua 14:6-15.

A historical failure

The land was granted to us by grace. The Lord Jesus Christ is all ours, so that we can enjoy Him in fullness. However, why throughout the centuries, has Christianity failed in the possession of the land? Why, if Christ is all ours, have not we enjoyed Him fully? Why, having so great and wonderful a gift, have not we taken hold of that inheritance? Why, if we can live a superior life, in the celestial plane, have we been satisfied with living a life on earthly levels? What has gone wrong, brothers and sisters?

Can anyone who has sincerely searched for Christ say: “He failed me”? When you have searched for him with all your heart, have you not found him? The Scripture says: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart.” But if you are more or less indifferent to the celestial vision, to the divine purpose, if your heart doesn’t burn with the purpose of God, then you cannot take possession of the land. That is why I wanted us to look at the history of Caleb and how he entered and took possession of the Promised Land.

A land of giants

Mount Hebron is the richest mountain in Israel. When the spies –among whom were Joshua and Caleb– entered in the land for the first time, forty five years before this passage, they went principally toward Hebron. They recognized the land, but fundamentally they went toward Hebron, and when they returned to Moses, they said: “Jehovah has told us the truth. The land is truly a land that flows with milk and honey. But we also saw the people of Anak, the giants of the Anak race there.”

The Israelites had left Egypt, they had left slavery behind, and after some months they arrived at the border of the Promised Land. That had happened forty five years before. Israel was in full view of the land that flows with milk and honey, but didn’t enter in. Why didn’t they enter? Because, when those spies returned, they said: “Truly it is a land that flows with milk and honey –in truth, Christ is beautiful; He is truly wonderful–but the giants of the Anak race are also there: the price that is necessary to pay is too great.” And, while they spoke those words, they frightened the hearts of the people.

Christ is wonderful, but to possess Christ in fullness, we must enter into the land and go face the walled cities and the giants. Does this seem strange: if Christ is a gift of grace, how is it that there are giants in the land that God gave us our inheritance? It is a gift, but God gives us a gift that seems difficult to accept. Then, those people that had left Egypt were afraid and refused to enter into possession of God’s land. Look at the tragedy of that generation! They had the greatest of all wealth and promises within their grasp, and they didn’t take possession of it.

It is necessary to pay a price

We should know that there is a difference between the revelation of God’s purpose, the mystery of Christ, and the possession of that mystery, the fullness of His life. You can have the ‘revelation’, the understanding, the vision; you can have the Promised Land in sight, but for that reason you have not taken possession of it. Something more is required. You not only have to see it, you have to enter and to put your feet upon it. And as you advance, you will meet the giants of the Anak race, and with the walled cities. God is not deceiving us about the land. The unbelieving Israelites judged that God had lied to them. But He had not lied.

Great multitudes followed Jesus, because the Lord is the land of abundance. Nobody came to him only to leave with empty hands, because Christ is the land that flows with milk and honey! But Jesus told those multitudes that followed him: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow me... For whoever wants to save his life, will lose it; but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” The Lord has never lied to us. It is true that Christ is fullness, but He also told us that to arrive at that fullness, we must follow the way of the cross. There is no other form of entering the land of God, except through the way of the cross.

Now we have God’s command for taking possession of all that is in Christ. And do you know what that means? Do you know what price you have to pay to take possession of Christ? If you knew it, would you even want to pay that price? It is certain, it is a gift of grace, but the giants and the walled cities are also there.

The church enjoys the fullness

Caleb and Joshua could have gone into the land immediately, because they believed the Lord. But this was not God’s will, because He didn’t want them to enter alone; He wanted all His people to enter into possession of the land.

God doesn’t just look for exceptional individuals to possess the land. Although Caleb and Joshua are exceptional, they, by themselves, were not in the right conditions for possessing God’s land. No man, even those who are righteous in their faith before God, will be able to enter into Christ’s fullness, because possession of this is not for any one individual in particular, but rather, it is to be enjoyed by Jesus Christ’s church. Christ’s fullness is for His church! You cannot enter into the land alone, even if you are Joshua, even if you are God’s servant, even if you have a different spirit, even if your vision of God is different.

In the past, many brothers have written books about how to live a victorious, more abundant, deeper Christian life. That is fine in one sense, but it is mistaken in another, because it gives the impression that one individual can end up living Christ’s fullness. Brothers and sisters, Christ’s fullness is something much greater than what you and I can contain as individuals. Christ is too big to be contained in individual vessels. What’s more, from the eternity past, God designed a single vessel to be the fullness of His Son Jesus Christ, and that vessel is Christ’s church!

The desert is the cross

Although Joshua and Caleb were more spiritually mature than their brothers, and although they had a greater understanding of God’s truths, even so they had to travel the same forty years along side the people of Israel in the desert. Here is a very important spiritual lesson: why did Joshua and Caleb walk forty years in the desert with the rest of Israel? What does the desert represent? In the Scriptures, the desert is the place of God’s testing. There is nothing, everything is dry, lonely, arid; there is no life. When you walk there, you are walking through death. The first generation’s fall meant that all who belonged to the old man, all that came from the flesh should die in that desert.

The desert represents the work of the cross; it is the time that God takes to deal with your flesh and mine. Before entering into the land, the flesh must be removed; the old man cannot enter through his own capacities. The flesh cannot possess Christ. That generation’s forty years in the desert meant that the old man was displaced and a new generation arose: a new man in Christ Jesus.

The vision of Christ

Of all the men and women that left Egypt as adults, only Caleb and Joshua survived the desert. How was it that Caleb and Joshua could enter? How is it that these men survived and could enter into God’s land? Let us see:

“I was forty years-old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land; and I brought him back a report according to my convictions” (Joshua 14:7). “I was sent and I entered the land. I saw it with my own eyes, I touched it with my hands; I ate of its fruits. I had a vision, an experience of the land, and that land remained in my heart.” Caleb saw Mount Hebron, and that mountain remained in his heart. During those forty years, while he wandered in the desert, something kept him going; there was God’s promise in his heart. He had seen the land, and God had told him: “You will enter.” So during that whole time, when the cross was operating, there was something that kept Caleb going: it was the vision of what God had shown him, it was the vision of the land, it was the vision of Jesus Christ!

Beloved brothers and sisters, firstly we need a vision of Christ; not a concept, not ideas, not theologies, not doctrine about Jesus Christ. We need a revelation of Christ that passes over all our being, completely capturing it. We need a vision of Christ that consumes us, that wins our heart and makes us live for that vision from that day onwards. Until that day arrives, we are still not moving toward the land; we are still, like the Israelites, going round in circles.

But because Caleb had a vision of Christ placed in his heart, he knew where he was going. He could endure the cross, because he had a living revelation of Christ in his heart. When the test comes, when the whirlwind comes, when the desert consumes, only a vision of Jesus Christ burning in your heart can keep you going and leads you forward. When all the lights go out, the Bright Morning Star will maintain your course, He will show you where north is, and you won’t die!

We need the Father to reveal Christ in our hearts as never before. We need a vision that captures us, that passes over us and leads us forward to possess the land, through the testing night, until arriving at the goal that God has marked out in Christ Jesus. Is your vision of Christ like this? Are you captivated by Christ, brothers and sisters? If your vision is less than this, you will fall in the desert. The desert is long, and so too the testing.

The resurrection life

And then Caleb says: “But my brothers, who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I however followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.” (v.8). He is remembering what happened forty five years ago, when all said: “That is a terrible land”, and he said: “No, it is truly a wonderful land.” When they have come to you, brother, and have told you: “This life of the church is too tiring, it is too difficult a path”, what was your testimony? On whose behalf have you spoken? Have you given testimony of Christ? Have you said: No, the life of God is truly wonderful, Christ is truly wonderful, the land is truly wonderful!? Or in a secret part of your heart have you let bitter words pour out, and been unfaithful to the Lord?

“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...” (v.9). Oh, brothers and sisters, what a wonderful promise! “The land on which your feet have walked will be yours.” Christ, who was revealed in your heart, will be yours! Paul says: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me...” “I want to end up being found in Him one day. When you look for Paul and you don’t find him anywhere, you will have to look for him in Christ. Paul will no longer be found anywhere: only Christ, and Paul hidden in Him.”

“Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty five years... So here I am today, eighty-five years old.” (v.10). Caleb walked in the desert for Forty years, and now he is eighty five years old. You know what a man of eighty five is like: his bones hurt, his articulations are hardened and he can hardly walk. From a human point of view, he is finished.

And here an eighty five year-old old man is presented and he says: “Joshua, the Lord told me: that mountain is yours. And now I am eighty five years old, but the Lord has kept me alive during these forty five years.” This is a man who no longer lives in the strength of the flesh, in man’s natural strength: it is a man who lives a resurrection life: “The Lord has kept me alive!” It is not Caleb’s life, it is not his strength, it is not his capability; it is the strength, the capability and the power of God’s life in him!

Here we have a spiritual principle: to enter into the land, we must not do it in the strength of the flesh, but in the power of the resurrection life. God’s life is in you. Christ put his life in you. What is the difference between a man that lives in the power of the resurrection and one that simply has God’s life? It is the desert that makes the difference. The desert is the work of the cross. When this has worked deeply in you, then your natural life has been displaced, you have been weakened in your natural self; you are no longer a man that trusts in his own strength. That is what the desert did to Caleb. At eighty years of age, he could only look to God and say: “It is you, Lord, and you alone that can make me take that mountain.”

Loss of trust in the flesh

We need the cross to work deeply in our lives. Don’t make the error of avoiding the cross, because only the cross can give you the resurrection life; only through it can you come into the life on a superior plane. You need that desert which consumes your natural life so that your external being wears away and destroys your self confidence and your own strength; where you learn not to live in the capacity of your mind, in the strength of your will, in your power to make decisions, in your capacity to project and to plan.

A gap exists between God’s vision and the full execution of that vision in our lives. That gap is the way of the cross. The cross was designed before the foundation of the world, and it was made to your measure. There is a desert for you and for me there ahead. You can look at it and terrify yourself. If you enter into it, you will discover the other side of the resurrection life, because God is faithful. Caleb experienced it in its own life: even though many years passed by, he finally reached the land of God again.

“Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day... but the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.” (v.12). I like this sentence a lot: “But the Lord helping me.” Is Caleb doubting? No; rather he is a man that has known the cross and doesn’t speak with that confidence of the flesh. That phrase was enough for the power of God to act through Caleb. He is a weakened man who doesn’t have confidence in himself. It is not a phrase that comes from doubt, but one that comes from the cross.

We are sometimes so sure of ourselves in speaking; we have so much trust in what we know. But here is a man who does not even have confidence. He trusts God, but distrusts himself. He says “the Lord helping me,” but he takes his sword and ascends.

The fullness is in the body

And when he ascends, he doesn’t go alone. This is very important. The whole tribe of Judah ascended with Caleb to take Hebron, because conquering the land is not an individual activity. This is the lesson that Joshua and Caleb learned in the desert: not alone, but as a body. Both had to be deeply weakened in order to learn this lesson. When the day arrived, Caleb was a man who no longer trusted in himself: he could rely on God, and also on Christ’s body. Both these things are interconnected.

There are some of us who can easily trust Christ, but don’t trust Christ’s body. It is a great tragedy for God’s work. Even among pastors, among elders, among workers, there are men who don’t trust in Christ’s body as they should. We don’t understand what God has given to the church, and for that reason, when the moment arrives; we are not capable of submitting ourselves and allowing ourselves to be regulated by the body.

Christ’s fullness is in Christ’s body. May the Lord open our eyes to see this. It doesn’t matter whether your brother is young, old, if you think that he is wise or not; the fact is that if he belongs to Christ –because we meet together, because we interweave ourselves with one another– Christ’s wealth is there, a fullness that you or I, alone, could never reach. For that reason, we need to have Christ’s heart; our heart must widen to make room for all God’s children, because if all the children of God are together and they come to Christ, there will be a greater fullness there than when we are separated and alone.

The heavenly places

Caleb ascended against the Anaks and took Hebron. The Anaks were giants who inhabited the mountains of the Promised Land. In the land of Canaan, which is figure of Christ, the highest places, where there is the greatest fullness, where there is the greatest abundance; these are the most difficult places to take possession of. The mountains are the highest places in the land, and are therefore a figure of the heavenly places. The Scriptures say that we were called to sit with Christ in the heavenly places. That means a position of dominion, of government and of glory together with Christ.

The church is called to govern together with Christ. But in the heavenly places there are other powers which are hostile to God’s will and who also seek to govern. And when the church wants to enter into full possession of its inheritance in Christ – its place in the heavenly realms–it has to deal with the giants of the Anak race, that is to say, against the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This is the most difficult part. But Christ defeated all these powers on the cross! You need that resurrection life to take possession of the heavenly places, according to God’s purpose in Christ Jesus.

When Caleb took the mountain, he destroyed the fortified cities and destroyed the giants. When he had taken possession of the mountain, then he changed its name; The Mountain was no longer called Kiriath Arba, but Hebron. Hebron means communion, it means life.

“Then the land had rest from war.” (v.15). Brothers and sisters, there is a battle that is still raging for God’s people. There are still high places to be taken, there are still riches of Christ to be taken, there are parts of the land that have to be conquered; they are the highest places, the most difficult places. When the church definitively takes possession of them, then the land will have rest from the war.

One day, brothers and sisters, if we continue onward along the way of the cross, and we come by that way into the center of God’s will in Christ Jesus, then the powers of death and darkness will be demolished, they will be displaced, they will be cast out from the land. Satan will completely lose his position. Then, the war will have concluded, and the victory will belong to Christ and His church forever. Blessed is the name of the Lord forever!

Synthesis of an oral message shared in Rucacura (Chile) 2003.

Copyright © AGUAS VIVAS | CHILE 2003