Read
Joshua Ch 24: 14-18
“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we travelled. And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”
Think
The book of Joshua finishes with a marvellous reminder of all that God has done. Look at all these enemies and circumstances that were set against you – look at all the impossible odds you faced! Then look at how time after time after time God made a way. It wasn’t you – God did it.
Will you commit yourselves to him again, and serve no other Gods? I mean, why would you go anywhere else?! Look how completely powerful and kind and perfect our God is.
“Yes!” cry all the people.
They won’t, though. Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings – these are stories of their repeated failures. Isaiah and all the prophets – these are promises of how God will judge them for it, and yet how he will have mercy and forgive.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – these are eyewitness accounts of God coming to us as a man, Jesus. The one who would not only keep his end of the deal, but pay completely the price for our failure to keep ours. He pays the cost, we get all the blessings.
Will you commit yourself to him again? “Yes!” cry God’s people – but now we have his Spirit living in us and his law written on our hearts to keep us on the narrow path. Now we have the perfect sacrifice given once for all, so that even when we sin, we are no longer slaves to that – we have become slaves to righteousness.
Dear friends, let’s keep striving to live as those whose whole lives are devoted to God. We can commit to him, confident that he will finish the good work he began in us – not in our strength, but his.
Pray
Father, thank you that where we would always fail, you have come and given us all. Like the Israelites, our hearts might have said ‘yes!’ but we would have let ourselves down time after time. Thank you that you have been faithful to us beyond what we could begin to ask for, that you have set us free from slavery to sin, and given us new hearts.
Help us to commit ourselves to you each day – that we would know daily the importance of prayer and reading your word, that we would find all the strength we need in you, and that we would continually find in you all the fulness of life, joy, forgiveness and peace.
Amen
