Taking Ground | Week 8

Day 3

“So Joshua said to the Israelites: ‘How long will you neglect to go and possess the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you?’” - Joshua 18:3

That question lands heavy.

“How long?”

Not if.
Not maybe.
How long will you neglect what has already been given?

Neglect is quieter than rebellion. It does not announce itself with dramatic headlines. It drifts. It delays. It shrugs.

Israel was not openly rejecting God’s promise. They simply were not fully stepping into it. The land had been distributed. Territory had been assigned. The battles had begun. But some tribes settled into partial possession.

They had enough to survive.
They had enough to get by.
They had enough to look established.

But they did not have fullness.

Neglect is dangerous because it feels harmless.

You can neglect prayer without feeling rebellious.
You can neglect Scripture without feeling hostile.
You can neglect discipleship without feeling defiant.
You can neglect leadership in your home without announcing abdication.

But over time, neglect compounds.

Joshua’s question exposes the heart: Why are you living beneath what God has provided?

The inheritance was not theoretical. God had sworn it to Abraham. He had repeated it to Isaac. He had confirmed it to Jacob. He had declared it through Moses. He had reaffirmed it to Joshua.

The promise was not unclear.
The issue was urgency.

They grew comfortable in incomplete obedience.

And this is where generational decline begins.

Numbers 33:55 had warned them plainly: if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, they will become thorns in your sides. What you refuse to remove will eventually influence you.

Israel chose coexistence over confrontation.

“They aren’t that bad.”
“It won’t affect us.”
“If we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone.”

But the Canaanites did not simply remain neighbors. They became models.

Their sexual immorality.
Their idolatry.
Their worship on their own terms.
Their obsession with pleasure and prosperity.

For 400 years, Israel cycled through the same dysfunction. The book of Judges reads like a broken record: sin, oppression, crying out, deliverance, then back again.

Why?

Because the previous generation neglected full obedience.

What one generation tolerates, the next generation normalizes.

Neglect always has a generational ripple.

When fathers neglect spiritual leadership, culture steps in.
When mothers neglect consistent prayer, anxiety fills the vacuum.
When families neglect gathering with God’s people, isolation grows.
When believers neglect conviction, compromise feels natural.

You rarely wake up one day intending to drift. You just slowly stop rowing.

And the enemy is content with that.

If he cannot destroy you publicly, he will dull you privately.
If he cannot scandalize you, he will stagnate you.
If he cannot wreck your life dramatically, he will waste it quietly.

Many today are not in open rebellion, they are simply numb.

We grind.
We tolerate.
We medicate.
We scroll.
We distract ourselves.

We laugh less deeply.
We cry less honestly.
We feel less intensely.

A desert forms in the soul.

We begin to assume, “I guess this is just what life is.”

But can I say gently, this isn’t it.

God did not redeem Israel to survive cramped quarters.
He did not redeem you to live spiritually dehydrated.

The question still stands: How long?

How long will we postpone hard conversations?
How long will we delay repentance?
How long will we tolerate patterns we know God has addressed?
How long will we assume there is always more time?

Joshua was not condemning Israel. He was awakening them.

The tone is pastoral, not punitive. It is a leader saying, “You were made for more than this.”

David inherited this neglect.

Jerusalem had remained unconquered for centuries. The Jebusites were still there. Generations before him had avoided the fight. It was easier to work around the stronghold than confront it.

But David refused inherited passivity.

Taking ground generationally means someone decides the cycle ends here.

“It ends with me.”
“The drift stops here.”
“The compromise will not pass to my children.”

That is costly.
It requires humility.
It requires repentance.
It requires courage.

But it is possible.

Because Jesus stepped into humanity’s long story of neglect and did not settle for coexistence with darkness.

For centuries, humanity cycled in sin. Idolatry, injustice, wandering, rebellion. And then Christ came, not to manage the problem, but to crush it.

At the cross, He did not partially deal with sin. He decisively defeated it. The empty tomb declares that neglect does not have the final word.

If Christ refused to neglect you, you cannot afford to neglect Him.

The inheritance is not lost. It is waiting.

The Spirit is still empowering.
The Word is still speaking.
The church is still gathering.
Grace is still available.

But grace does not remove responsibility, it fuels it.

You do not fight for acceptance.
You fight from acceptance.

You do not pursue obedience to earn love.
You pursue obedience because you are loved.

How long will you neglect?

Today can be the interruption.

Today can be the moment your family says, “We will not live in spiritual survival mode. We will not normalize dysfunction. We will not drift quietly.”

The land has been given.

Get up.
Cross over.
Possess what is already yours.