“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness.” |
—Joshua 24:14 |
Everyday we make scores of choices. In so doing, we are pulled this way and that. Some choices matter very little. Other choices have monumental importance.
After spending 40 years wandering in the desert, the children of Israel finally entered the Promised Land. There they found a multitude of strange new gods. They also carried the memory of the Egyptian gods they had left behind when their families had fled from Egypt.
The inclination to fit into the society they were now joining tugged mightily on them. They wanted to belong. It was so tempting to abandon their faith tradition and begin worshipping these new gods, or to re-embrace the gods of Egypt, instead of remaining faithful to the God of their own forefathers.
Then, Joshua took a strong stand. His words are recorded in Joshua 24:14-15:
“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.”
Let us turn our backs today on all the other “gods” who beg us to serve them. Instead, let us devote ourselves to serving the one true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the only One who loves us with His everlasting love.
Based on a blog originally posted on Wednesday, September 9, 2015