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Devotionals
"Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year." Joshua 5:12
Joshua tells us that the miraculous manna suddenly ceased. That food which had come down from above since the days of the nation's infancy would now come up from the ground since that they had matured into manhood. The powerful Presence that had been their guide while they wandered in the wilderness would now give to them the power to guide themselves. Until now every man had been fed by the hand of God, but from this time forward every man was to feed one another. The manna would no longer miraculously and spontaneously fall from the skies. Now it would be the husband's responsibility to feed his wife, the parent's responsibility to feed their children, and the strong's responsibility to feed the weak. For forty years they had been nourished by way of the heavenly food, but from this point forward they would eat of the food of Canaan. In the absence of the miraculous manna they would gather from the food of the land.
“People shall worship Him, Each one from his place. . .” Zephaniah 2:11
The prophet says that there is coming a time when there will no longer be a distinction drawn between the secular and the sacred. This was a startling statement for this certainly was not the case in His day. During the Jewish dispensation it was forbidden for men to worship God “each one from his place” – from the spot on which he was standing. In fact, there was only one place where everyone was commanded to worship – Jerusalem. This was the place where the tribes were told to go up. It was from within her gates that the smoke of the incense was to rise. But Zephaniah says that there is a new day dawning, one in which every man will have within his own gates a temple to worship God. There is coming a day, Zephaniah explains, when there will be no need of things or beasts that will carry us from things that are temporal to things that are eternal. It will be done simply by the breath of the Spirit - by a simple movement of the heart.
