(Joshua 1)<\/a>. They had reached their promised land already. They were fully armed and ready for battle as they led the rest of the people into the promised land.<\/p>\nWhen I lead people into salvation, into the promised land, I need to be ready for battle too. New Christians aren’t always ready for what the enemy will throw at them. They are often still busy bringing their possessions and their families across with them. I have to be in the vanguard, ready to defend them.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The armed warriors from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh led the Israelites across the Jordan, just as Moses had directed. These armed men\u2014about 40,000 strong\u2014were ready for battle, and the Lord was with them as they crossed over to the plains of Jericho.Joshua 4:12-13 NLT These are the men from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[413,66],"class_list":["post-3565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","tag-christian","tag-salvation","category-5","description-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfWaLo-Vv","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2194,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2011\/04\/well-well-will-will\/","url_meta":{"origin":3565,"position":0},"title":"Well, well! Will, will!","author":"Robert Pender","date":"05\/04\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"How big is your faith? In our Celebrate Recovery programme, we have been talking quite a bit about faith and, to help people get a grasp of what Jesus said about faith (Matthew 17:20), we gave everyone a mustard seed. If we have faith that big, we can move a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christianity"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/christian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2110,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2011\/01\/right-mountain-out-of-the-way\/","url_meta":{"origin":3565,"position":1},"title":"Right, Mountain, out of the way!","author":"Robert Pender","date":"27\/01\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A friend of mine will shortly set out on an amazing adventure - to climb Mount Kilimanjaro - to help raise funds for the charity Scottish Spina Bifida. I really admire him for that. It will take courage, strength and endurance. You can sponsor him if you would like to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christianity"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/christian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3919,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2018\/05\/praying-at-the-right-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":3565,"position":2},"title":"Praying at the right time","author":"Robert Pender","date":"08\/05\/2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I once went for an interview in London and I was having a lot of trouble finding a parking space. I finally found one in a multi-storey car park and then ran to the place where the interview was being held. I arrived just in time, but after the interview\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christianity"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/christian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6120,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2021\/01\/lets-start-at-the-very-beginning\/","url_meta":{"origin":3565,"position":3},"title":"Let’s start at the very beginning","author":"Robert Pender","date":"29\/01\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]You might not agree with what I'm going to say, but that in itself will just prove my point. Let me begin by saying that I disagree. In fact, we all disagree. We disagree about politics, about religion, about football teams, about diets, fashion, music, money. We disagree about everything\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bible"","block_context":{"text":"Bible","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/bible\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4531,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2019\/05\/a-shadow-of-my-future-self\/","url_meta":{"origin":3565,"position":4},"title":"A shadow of my future self","author":"Robert Pender","date":"01\/05\/2019","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column width=\"1\/2\"][vc_single_image image=\"4532\" img_size=\"full\"][\/vc_column][vc_column width=\"1\/2\"][vc_column_text css=\"\"]Many years ago I had a very sore back. It would come and go every few months. First one side would hurt and, just as it was getting better, then the other side would start to hurt. I have a very vivid memory of John\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christianity"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/christian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7242,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2022\/12\/14-plans\/","url_meta":{"origin":3565,"position":5},"title":"14 – Plans","author":"Robert Pender","date":"16\/12\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\"7243\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\"][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I have always been a great believer in making plans, especially when we are doing something special or going away somewhere. It is best to get it right and not miss anything out. Be in control! The trouble is that we are seldom, if ever in control.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3565"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3568,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565\/revisions\/3568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}