- Possess Everlasting Land
Genesis 17:8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
God promises Abraham land. God promises us (the seed) land. The land becomes the spiritual kingdom of God, which is the eternal land in the heart, and then the inheritance kept for us in heaven and will one day be realized in full glory.
In the present land we are in we are strangers. We don’t belong here, because we belong to the Lord and to His land in heaven. Heaven is God’s home and it is our homeland. We are strangers and exiles and pilgrims on the earth. We will never fit in to this worldly kingdom. We are tempted to “fit in and get along,” but our true Lord won’t really let us become molded to the world’s ways. Our citizenship is above. Therefore, we should not think it strange or odd if we don’t feel like we are at home in the world with its ways of thinking and living.
This present world that sin wants us to be familiar with is passing away. We desire a “better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city [Hebrews 11:16].” This land, this better country, is promised to us as an “everlasting possession.” We possess eternal life now and forever. And God is our God. “A man’s life does not consist in his possessions,” says Jesus, because all present possessions will soon pass away and be gone. We possess a life that does not pass away. The life I possess by faith is everlasting and will endure for eternity. God’s eternal life is taking over the old life full of sin and death and destroying it. By faith in Christ we are taking over the “land of Canaan,” the worldly land of idolatry, unbelief, false gods, immorality and wickedness. Christ, and we with Him, has cancelled the authority of the Prince of the Power of the Air and returned the dominion of Paradise to us believers. Now with Joshua (Jesus) we go in and possess the kingdom God gave us. We are promised eternal life, the kingdom, as an everlasting possession. We have eternal life now within, and later we will have it all around us without as well.