Pure Influence and Affluence Comes from God
“That day the LORD exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they stood in awe of him all the days of his life, just as they had stood in awe of Moses.”
In this day everyone is a journalist with their blogs, and everyone seems to be an influencer with their social media accounts. Media is allowing up to stay connected and see what our counterparts around the world are doing. In this social media age, it seems as if we’re all trying to exalt ourselves. I’m not anti-social media. There are many positive aspects of it. Nor am I anti influencer or anti- affluence. God has blessed various people with influence and affluence, and has exalted certain people above others.
After all, Psalm 75:7 tells us: “No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt themselves. It is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another.” And we see that in the case with Joshua when he became the leader of the Israelites after Moses died. It is believed that Joshua was in his eighties when he became the leader. He had faithfully served Moses as his assistant but the Bible tells us that even Joshua needed favor in the eyes of the people to lead them. They had admired Moses and even though they knew Joshua, he had to be exalted and it was only God who could do that. Back in Joshua 3:7 God told Joshua that He was going to exalt him/give him favor in the eyes of the people: “And the LORD said unto Joshua, ‘This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee (KJV).’”
In a miraculous act of crossing the Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant, God did signs and wonders with Joshua as the leader of everyone. In this single act, the people admired Joshua and they stood in awe of him until the day he died. According to American professor of classics and literature, Louis Feldman, in his book “Josephus’s Portrait of Joshua,” he states:
“Since one of the most important qualities of a great leader is to be able to discern the qualities of people and above all, to select a worthy successor, the fact that Moses, the greatest leader that the Israelites had ever had, chose his successor Joshua led Josephus to the conclusion that Joshua possessed the qualities of an ideal statesman.”
Josephus was an accurate first-century Roman-Jewish historian. His writings are used by Christian and Jewish scholars as primary sources, and are used because of their accuracy. Josephus analyzed Joshua’s leadership skills and concluded that Joshua had five key qualities: he was extremely courageous, valiant in endurance of toil, highly gifted in intellect, highly gifted in speech, and distinguished for piety in worshiping
While some are looking to be influencers and affluent, I don’t think that should be our motive. Firstly, it’s God who exalts people we can’t really do that effectively without God’s hand being in the exaltation. It has to be in His divine plan for one to be exalted. We should be humble like Solomon, asking God for wisdom on how to use the gifts and talents He has given us [see 1 Kings 3: 7-9]. There’s nothing you or I can do to exalt ourselves to a level where masses of people are in awe of us with purity and holiness. Sure, we can make a deal with the devil and take power and exert control. Men like Hitler was able to achieve that, but this kind of exaltation, a usurping of exaltation will not last long because it is ungodly and unholy. Rather, we should be humble being content in how God wants to use us on this earth in small circles or larger circles.