118. Tread in Your Land
Deuteronomy 11:24, 25 Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be. There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.
The Lord promised the people through Moses that He is giving them the Land. Now He promises in more detail and uses graphic language to describe the Promise. “You may go in and claim the land that you are walking on for yourself. You own it, you possess it, you inhabit it, you farm it, you build on it, and you will live there on the land I am giving you. There are enemies already in the land but I will put fear of you into them and wherever you tread on the land the enemies will be afraid of you.”
The Land, the Kingdom of God, has come into our spirits by faith in Jesus. God gives us the Kingdom. But there are pockets of resistance and enemy strongholds already there ravaging our souls. God promises that we will be able to walk over to those places of resistance to God’s Kingdom Rule, tread on them, demolish their strongholds, and drive them out. The paradoxical question, for Israel then and for us now, is this: What is God doing and what are we doing? Who is doing the treading, driving out, and taking over? Is it God or is it I? The answer: God is doing it all, but He is using us as willing instruments to accomplish His purpose. God is doing all the work, but it feels like we are doing the treading.
The Holy Spirit is working on the sinfulness of the soul bit by bit, little by little, to root out, scrub out, and drive out the enemies of the soul. We must be convinced that weeding out embedded and habitual sin is good for us, and we need to be convinced that God can actually do it. That is why the Lord gives us this promise. God says, “Trust me, you don’t have to surrender to besetting sins, addictions, and bad habits. You are an overcomer. Give the problem to me and let me go to work on it.” And sure enough, during the time we spend in God’s Word, the Spirit is working in us to will and to do His good pleasure. We are actually becoming better people, who are walking over and treading on sins and the devil’s temptations and quashing the fear of death. God’s Truth and Promise: We are winning, and we will win.