Speaker 1: Most of us eat every day, some of us too much,
because yesterday's food is not enough to supply energy for
today's needs. Why then, do some of us expect yesterday's
portion of heavenly manna, the word of God to keep
us through today's challenges. On this program, we are going
to change all of that. Let's experience God's words today
and receive the power we need to live healthy, vibrant lives.
Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host, author speaker,
Elle David Harris.
Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning, Good morning. It is Sunday, November
twenty three, twenty twenty five. Hello, my name is El
David Harris. I am your host, and this is your
Daily Portion where we give you God's word every single day,
and today is no exception. We are continuing in our
lesson study series Lessons of Faith from Joshua, and our
caption for today is Eden and Canaan, Eden and Canaan.
I'm actually fascinating by that connection. Before we get into this,
I'd like to say welcome to everyone joining us, especially
those joining us for the very first time. Please please
go over to your Daily Portion dot com. Please join
our online community. Pick up your Daily Portion Life application
guide and let us know where you are in the
world at your Daily Portion dot com. This is one
of the ways that we continue to build faith and fellowship.
Let's go ahead and pray and get underway. Father, We
thank you for this new day and for the privilege
you have given us to consider how you get us
from what went wrong at the garden and what went
terribly right. If that's a way of saying it, for
us to inherit the promise, please help us to inherit
the promise. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen and Amen again.
Eden and Canaan, so Adam and Eve obviously where given
the Garden of Eden as their home. And I think
many times when we read the Bible too quickly, or
we're not paying attention, taking some things for granted, we
make it seem as if Eden is the entire planet. Well,
clearly it's not. And I know you're following with me.
I know clearly it's not. Because they were cast out
of Eden, you know, and they still had somewhere to live, right,
But Eden is a representation of the original time they were.
There was a representation of the closeness of the presence
of God. The Tree of Life was there. God walked
in the cool of the day and came and communed
with them, like talked. I know, we don't say commune
like that for real in our language these days. But
they were able to walk and talk with God, you understand,
Like whatever friends do. They were able to do that
together with him. I don't want you to see this
as like when a dignitary comes into your city or town,
you understand. So they were so close to God that
they were face to face. And of course after they
chose to sin, they were put out of the garden.
Of course God did not destroy them, and He's given
them the blessing of being able to connect with Him.
And now we are on this journey back to that
same kind of connection. And one of the stopping points
or waypoints along the journey was the Earthly Promised Land.
Because everybody who is baptized into Christ are Abraham's seed
and heirs, according to the promise that God made to Abraham,
you understand. And so since that's the case. Since that's
the case, whatever we see along the journey from each
to Canaan is a way to learn how to connect
to God eternally. That's the short version of the story.
And so we come in to the rest of the
story by reading. By reading in Genesis chapter three, in
verse twenty three. Genesis is called the Book of Beginnings,
and the Bible reads Therefore the Lord sent him forth
from the garden of Eden to till the ground from
whence he was taken my word. Let me read one
more thing from Genesis chapter thirteen, verses fourteen and fifteen.
I'll leave out a little bit of it. And the
Bible reads. And the Lord said, unto Abram, all the
land which thou seest, m hm, we have land. We
have God speaking to one of his children, which thou
seest to thee, will I give it and to thy
seed forever. Okay. And so in the beginning, in the beginning,
when God gave humanity a home, gave humanity a home,
it reflected his heart, Eden, which was a place of
abundance and peace and fellowship. The garden was a living
classroom revealing who God is and how life flourishes under
his rule or leadership. But when Adam and Eve chose
to distrust God instead of obeying him, the ground that
once gave freely now resisted them. They lost their territory
because they lost their connection with God. And so this
pattern reappears with God's people through that journey from Exodus,
from Exodus from Egypt to Canaan. Canaan became a symbol
of the restoration. You see where this is going. Distrust
got God's people kicked out of the Garden of Eden,
and learning to trust God and his promises got them
back into the promised Land many years later. So the
question really is am I actually preparing to go into
the earthly promised land? And then the earth make the
heavenly promised land, and then the earth made new after
the thousand years are finished? You see? So the promised
of land like Eden was always about the presence of God.
This is really what we're talking about. If we strip
this down, It's all about getting back into the presence
of God, face to face. And so the Bible reads
in Hebrews chapter six and verse twelve, be not slothful,
but followers of them through faith and patience to inherit
the promises. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob literally never actually inherited
the promised land, and yet they walked as heirs of
a promise. They could not yet see faith taught them
that ownership was not measured by possession, but by trust.
They trusted that God was going to keep his promise.
The land belonged to God, and living in it required
dependence upon the same God. So if we're nearing home,
if we're nearing the time when Jesus will return, nearing
the time when we will shift from time to eternity
and then ultimately inherit the earth, as according to Matthew
chapter five, where Jesus said the meek will inherit the earth.
If we're nearing that reality, then we need to be
picking up the gleaning from the stories and experiences of
God's people along the pathway. How did they lose connection?
How did they regain connection? How did they inherit the
promise on earthly Canaan? How did the ones who who
missed the bus and not gotten it? How did that happen?
And then when again God gives us the ultimate promise,
we will have been prepared, and so we too are
heirs not of Canaan's soil, but of Christ's kingdom. Our
hope is rooted in God's grace. Every blessing we hold
is unearned, sustained only by God's grace and our continual
surrender to His will. Now, let me just read one
more passage before I let you go. From Deuteronomy, chapter
nine and verse six. Understand therefore that the Lord Thy
God giveth thee not this good land to possess it
because of your righteousness. This is where you get to
praise God with me. Wherever you're watching on planet Earth
right now, you get to praise God with me. That
God did not give the people what he gave them
because they earned it. They didn't work, and then God
gave them a paycheck based on their work. In fact,
in fact, from Christ's object Lessons, page three hundred and sixteen,
it reads, the inheritance of the saints is not earned,
but given. It is the free gift of God through Christ.
You see, since I can't earn it, since I cannot
merit it, since I don't deserve it. In fact, I
deserve the extreme opposite. I stand on all of my
whole two feet and my ten tolls, and I stand
up and I say, thank God, Thank God for what,
Thank God for not giving me what I deserve, but
giving me, in fact, what Jesus deserve. Eden and Canaan
now I can see some parallels. Peace.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us listening. Friends. Always remember we cannot
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God. This has been your daily
portion with El David Harris. Make it a great day. Yeah,