Reading in the book of Joshua is both exciting and at times disturbing. Here the people of Israel have been marching around the desert for over 40 years and now their big moment has arrived. The Israelites enter the promise land and starts to destroy the cities in the land of milk and honey. Being Joshua I can only image the fear he must have felt taking over for Moses. How could he ever measure up to a legend!
But we keep seeing the same words echoed throughout the book…’Be strong and courageous for the Lord is with you’. Joshua not only had God himself say this to him, but his own people also. Everywhere Joshua turned there was someone saying ‘do not fear’, ‘be strong’. I think about how this is still true for us today. God is on our side!
How many times do we try and face difficult circumstances on our own power and when it fails we blame God. Or here is one of my personal traits, I say I trust God, but in my hip pocket is a backup plan incase God doesn’t come through. See we need to trust in God completely…with our whole heart!
Joshua didn’t need to fear because he did exactly what God told him to do. If God said all things that breath air in the next cites are to be put to the sword…Joshua did just that. He didn’t let anything live, just as God commanded. We can look at some of these situations and find them disturbing…but God knew if Joshua didn’t kill everything…it would come back to haunt the people of Israel.
God at times has told you and me to get rid of a sin in our lives…He says to our heart, leave nothing to spare…kill it all, it cannot be allowed to live. What do we do? Well we go after it…but because some small bit of compassion or we just liked it…ever so slightly…we allow a part to live. Only down the road when it returns, bigger and stronger than ever…do we fully understand why God wanted it ‘all killed’.
When facing your Jericho, we need to be obedient and take courage in the ‘fact’ God goes before us and puts terror in the hearts of our enemy. We have to let God fight the big battle and be obedient in the ‘removing’ the sin from our lives…all of it.
Great lessons in the Book of Joshua…Keep reading!
-ps
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