After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ minister, Moses My servant is dead. So now arise [take his place], go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land which I am giving to them, the Israelites. Joshua 1:1-2 (AMPC)
There’s a time and season for everything. When the time and season for something is over it’s no longer relevant and trying to hold onto it is like holding onto a dead body of a person or thing.
But naturally the dead must be buried and we must move on because life goes on.
No matter how important, beneficial, loved, intimate, or how long we’ve been with a person or thing when they die we let go, bury them and move on.
Moses was Israel’s deliverer from Pharaoh and Egypt where they’d been oppressed under hard labor for over four centuries. With mighty and terrible signs and works by the hand of God, Moses led Israel out of Egypt, split the Red sea and they crossed over on dry land, drowned Pharaoh’s army that had pursued them in the sea. During this ministry of Moses the Lord guided and guarded Israel through a harsh desert for forty years. God miraculously protected and provided for them all this time. He gave them the law and all other instructions they were to follow in the land they were going to through Moses.
But now Moses is dead and gone. So God tells Joshua it’s time to arise take his place and move forward.
In our hearts we will always sense and know that a certain place, level, way of doing things where we’ve been long and gotten used to is now past its due date. The time and season for that thing is over, we now have to move on.
Even in relationships the people we used to hang out with, a time comes and we part company. None of us are still in close contact with the people we attended kindergarten with, not even junior, high school, college or university. There are very few exceptions though of ongoing relationships, friendships, and work connections that began in school.
Usually dead things were once full of life, they were once beneficial and significant to us but now their time is up. They can no longer help us, and holding on to them becomes an offense and a hindrance to our progress.
There’s only one proper loving and respectful thing to do to them. Bury them and move on.
There are even certain churches, ministries, workplaces, jobs, businesses where we once thrived but now the Lord is telling us to move out and move on to a bigger better purpose and vision.
Not that those churches, ministries, or workplaces are dead per se but rather based on what God has for us now we need the new and fresh so continuing there in the old would be like hanging out with what’s dead.
Right now in the church throughout the world, as far as true ministry is concerned, continuing to preach and teach the law is holding onto and ministering death.
2 Corinthians 3:6 (AMPC) [It is He] Who has qualified us [making us to be fit and worthy and sufficient] as ministers and dispensers of a new covenant [of salvation through Christ], not [ministers] of the letter (of legally written code) but of the Spirit; for the code [of the Law] kills, but the [Holy] Spirit makes alive.
We should discard and bury that ministry of death.
Instead we should preach and teach the life dispensing ministry of the Spirit which is the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.