Deuteronomy 31:14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, the time for you to die is near; call Joshua, and present yourselves at the tent of meeting, that I may commission him." So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the tent of meeting.
If you feel the Lord calling you to a job or place of service you might feel tempted to go and prepare yourself. That would be good. But what if you started down a part of seeking the way to “get ahead”? In almost every field you can find help with the process of getting ahead, but ahead of what?
What you usually want to get ahead of is others. I was told over and over again in training for ministry that “unless you’re the lead dog, the scene never changes”. This became to me a graphic image of how far we have diverted from being a “body” and how much ministry is not a race for the lead. But you can also go into a time of redneck contemplation and consider the truthfulness of this statement. Here are some thoughts to consider.
• Is there only someone ahead of me isn’t there someone beside me?
• Is life only a race, what about the scenery, the views of daily life?
• Even if you are the last dog, is life all pulling? What about all the other things we do beside work?
• Do people born in North Korea, India and other places spend their life trying to figure out how to get to America so things can be easier, less confining and with less social restraints?
• Why would we bring one man’s motto into the realm of God? Why not learn from God what life should be like?
In the above passage Joshua is like David, years later. They both were chosen and called before the time for them to take their place. The time or ceremony of setting in place can be called a commissioning. It was the Lord’s good please for them to “be the guy” while living under the guy there were going to replace. Joshua was about to become the leader of the nation of Israel. He was about to be given the Law to live out and the Promise Land to conquer. Generations would be effected by his life.
Do you want to do something great with your life? Do you want to be important, to make an impact? Do you feel like you are in computation with others? Do you feel like other people are the ones that can make or break your life? If you are living under and in the world system, then that is the way it is. But in the Kingdom of God, the rules are different. So different that the world cannot understand how the last dog in the pack, the one overlooked and despised, the one serving and helping all the others – is the lead dog.
Matthew 20:26-28
"It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you (lead dog) shall be your servant (involuntary helpers or all others), and whoever wishes to be first(the best) among you shall be your slave(involuntary servant); just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
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