Arise!!!

This morning I was reading in Joshua 1,
1Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' [a]servant, saying,
 "Moses (A)My servant is dead; now therefore arise, (B)cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.
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I was struck by the fact the Lord told Him to arise... I couldn’t think of the last time anybody had told me to arise and then given me an order.. It occurred to me that this word meant more to Joshua than a simple physical “sit up”. I think it was God telling Joshua, to arise like a King tells to a man recently knighted. There is a calling pinned to the word arise that a simple “get on your way” lacks..
My tendency is to hear songs like “I will rise” and for myself to both cringe and revel. I have heard that song sung so many times at Friday night church and part of me would cringe at the idea of rising up.. All I could think was I needed to become smaller. Less of me more of God. I know my heart, and the last thing I needed was to stand up and become bigger!
But I was mistaken, there is a calling to rise up that is not about a physical rising but a call to something higher. The Lord calls us to live a life that is sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ. We have been adopted into the family of God! No longer wretches of the sin that entangled us, we have been made new. We have been called and we need to arise to the battle that has been made known to us! He has prepared the Armor of God that we might put it on.
So I bid you Arise... Arise out of the ordinary, you have been called by a God who’s extraordinary. You have been named His Son’s and Daughter’s and have been inputted grace through it. Arise.
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Ephesians6:13-18
13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

-C