If you watch crime shows, you know the challenge is to guess who the villain is before it’s revealed. Solving the mystery usually means solving the motivation for the crime. One tried and true motivation centers around someone getting a fortune through an inheritance. The point being made is that an inheritance has great value.

Inheritance is key in these verses from Joshua. The tribes of Israel were reminded of their inheritance. It had monetary value and emotional value. The land was valuable. It was going to be home. It was the way of living and thriving. It was also a fulfilled promise of God, of HIS faithfulness. It was testimony reminding them they had been delivered from slavery to freedom. It was a stark reminder of wandering about the wilderness vs having a place to live and worship.

What becomes of an inheritance once it’s claimed? Do we value what has come to us? Do we take it for granted? Are we like the prodigal son Jesus told about? The younger brother demanded his inheritance and wasted it. He realized that pigs lived better than he did; he had wasted everything. The older brother was no better. He stayed with the father but when his brother returned and was welcomed home, he despised both younger brother and father. Both sons didn’t realize that they already had access to their inheritance by being with their father. The younger one loses everything only to realize that if he could just be near his father again, he would be grateful to be a servant. The older (who by the way never left his father) misses it all the way through, even when the father comes out and tells him directly that everything that belongs to the father can be accessed by the son. Older brother stayed with his father but never understood his inheritance. The younger wasted it all only to realize that his father was the real inheritance.

We have an inheritance with our Father that never goes away. If we squander it with our living, we still have a father running to welcome us back. When we grow cold no matter how “close” we are standing, He comes to us. The inheritance was in the moment and for the future for Israel, for the prodigal sons, and for us!