There’s always more!
- Jul 25, 2025
- 6 min read
Remember last week’s blog?
The gospel is the promise of God to ‘wipe the slate clean’ for anyone who will come and ask and believe that the price was paid for them by Jesus Christ, through His death and resurrection. As Christians, we know the experience of forgiveness that accompanies the slate being wiped clean. Hallelujah!! “Your disgrace has been rolled away.”
This is where we find ourselves in Joshua 5 today.
Finding God’s provision for the next part of the journey
“The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun- scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well- watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail” (Isaiah 58:11).
For Israel, a 40 year journey is ending, and another journey is beginning.
What next?
Before going into battle, the children of Israel now have the assurance of God’s presence.
When God commanded Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, He gave him instructions for how this redemption was to be remembered: a ‘Passover meal’ (Exod 12). For Joshua’s generation, 12 stones at Gilgal will help them tell their story. For Christians today, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, “Do this in remembrance of me”.
The Wilderness has passed, and the Promised Land has come. There’s been a re-identifying with God. Now finally, after 40 years, the Passover is shared once again!
The Passover now has the connection to the Promise.
Look at the end chapter 4 verse 19 – the people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month. Why are we getting a diary date?
They have entered the Promised Land on the tenth day of the first month. It’s not by accident that Joshua 4:19 gives us this information. This is the exact time that Israel celebrated the first Passover before leaving Egypt 40 years earlier.
The manna ceased the day after they ate from the Land (5:11). This marked the end of their Wilderness, "the reproach of Egypt!" It also marked a new beginning for Israel. The crossing into the land, the call to be holy, and the cessation of the manna, all occurred at Passover. Wow! What a moment!!
The manna was not given to make them dependent on such provision, but always on the Provider, God. I wonder how often we need to be reminded of this? The provision of manna will always be a testament to God's faithfulness and a test of obedience and trust for the children of Israel.
But there’s always more!
Look at it another way. Imagine waking up one morning after more than 14,000 consecutive days of miraculous provision and nothing was there. It must have felt strange! This isn’t a problem but a proclamation! God was saying, “your wilderness is definitely over.” Now you’ll eat from vineyards you didn’t plant and live in houses you didn’t build (read Deut 6:10-11).
The manna was for survival and transition, albeit a long one! But now, TODAY you’re stepping into abundance of all that God promised.
Didn’t Elijah experience this in 1 Kings 17? In a time of drought, God sustained him by a brook, and ravens fed him daily. But one day, the brook dried up and the ravens stopped coming. But God wasn’t finished with him. He was told to go to Zarephath, where a widow would care for him. From this point, Elijah would witness even greater works of God. The dry brook wasn’t a dead-end but a means of trusting God for the more.
Sometimes we prolong our suffering / barrenness (wilderness) in our lives because we remain where we are, afraid to get right with God, and then to move right in obedience with Him.
This is more common in Christian life today than we are willing to admit.
Richard Foster says, "It’s an experience of forsakenness, where you don't feel God's presence or experience him like you once did. The joy of the Lord you once knew has dried up, and you learn to go on faith alone, unpropped by supports of outward emotion and inner assurance."
Note! The manna sustained them but could never really satisfy them, nor was it meant to.
There’s always more!
Today, we are encouraged to re-discover the big story for our lives: the story of God’s love for us; a love which is so amazing and bigger than every other story, and His ultimate purpose is to conform us daily closer to the image of His son.
Maybe like the Israelites, the manna is all you’ve known; a dry Christian life, made up of trying/doing, not knowing the fulness of God and His powerful infilling of the Holy Spirit.
Imagine, what you’ve always known suddenly stops and then the overwhelming love and grace of God is lavished upon you. God begins to truly realign your heart to His.
This was their first Passover in 40 years. It describes the renewal of God’s people in preparation for the tasks before them.
We need God to draw us closer to Him and to strengthen our faith.
A line of the song from earlier- “There must be more than this, spirit of God we wait for you – consuming fire fan into flame a PASSION for your name!”
I’m reminded of what Victor Frankl wrote: "It really did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us."
The children of Israel expected manna every day for 40 years, until TODAY! They would now enter the 'more of life' God had always intended for them.
Joshua 5 becomes a transitional text: first it looks back to two significant parts of Israel's history, the Passover and God’s provision of manna, and then looks forward to their new life in the land flowing with good things. This was a new beginning of their new life.
The thing is, the Promised Land had already been given to them; their task was to take possession of it. Remember, "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you" (Josh 1:3).
Victor Frankl went onto say, “There is nothing in the world which helps a person surmount their difficulties, survive their disasters, keeps them healthy and happy, as the knowledge of a life task worthy of their devotion. You cannot advance in life with any buoyancy unless you are sure that where you are going has purpose and what you are doing has meaning.”
There’s always more!
Have you entered your ‘Canaan’ and claimed your possession?
It isn't God's will for you to wander around in a wilderness of defeat. It’s His will that you walk in victory and in His power.
Read Romans 8:37 and 2 Corinthians 2:14.
Come to that point where He will be everything and we will be nothing. Are you there yet, or are there parts of your life that remain un-surrendered?
J.I. Packer puts it this way: “A holy person’s motivating aim, passion, desire, longing, aspiration, goal, and drive is to please God, both by what one does and what one avoids doing.”
Ultimately, every move with God must be based on our trust in Him to be who He says He is and to do what He promises He’ll do.
You see, there’s a vast difference between a promise and a possession! God promised Israel the land, but they had to possess it before it became theirs. God has victory for us His children, that’s His promise! That promise must be actively pursued and possessed before it can ever become reality.
The wonderful thing is, ‘the task ahead is never as great as the power behind!'
But I have to tell you, "Where there’s no faith in the future, there’s no power in the present."
No matter what you’re going through, there still remains the more of God. God’s YES for you!
God had brought the children of Israel to a new season, one that required cultivation, not collection; daily stewardship, not just survival.
Remember Romans 5:1-2: “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing in the glory of God”
There’s always more!
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