Choosing the Footsteps of Our History

This chapter provides a great overview of Israel's important history with God It sort of sums up many of the major points of Jewish history, and shows their significance. I believe His history with the Jews, and His history in our lives is significant because it has been plotted and planned from the beginning. God doesn't make mistakes, and I believe our history is deliberate. He reminds us of that history, so that we can trust Him with our future.

God definitely orchestrates the events of our lives, but our choices determine the path. Every moment we live, we make choices about who we will serve: God, ourselves, other people, or Satan. Each choice creates a footprint in our walk of history on this planet. Even our small choices today, and the small steps we take today, affect our tomorrows. When our choices and steps are Spirit-led, and obedient to God's Word, we will find we've created a history of life, joy, and peace. We'll see God's blessing. We'll see in our own lives land we didn't work for, cities we did not build, the cities in which we live, and vineyards and groves we did not plant (see vs. 13!). That's pretty cool. How do we walk in His way, and in His blessing? I believe this chapter points it out to us.

1. Serve Him wholeheartedly. (vs. 14- 15, 24)
2. Honor the Lord. (vs. 14)
3. Put away anything you tend to love more than Him. (vs. 14)
4. Obey Him alone. (vs. 24)

Now there's a "TO DO" LIST for the day! Just do that, and you'll be good to go!

"Okay, yeah, these are good reminders, but they are very broad and general," you say. But I think God does THAT for a purpose, too. I think it's to help simplify things for us, so we don't feel bogged down with 8 million detailed "Do's and Don'ts," and end up forgetting the big picture. This list above gives us His desire for us and helps us remember the ultimate goal, so we can keep our eye on the prize. So let's delve into this list I've compiled and see what we see.

SERVE HIM WHOLEHEARTEDLY:

I find many times in my life, I just try and check off my spiritual checklist, but I'm not engaged with God, or seeking Him in the process. How often do we try and do God's work without God even being involved?! That's messed up. But we do it all the time. Pharisees did it, too, in Matthew. Jesus says to them, "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" (Matthew 15:8-9- But read the entire passage: Matthew 15:1-20). I think that's why God says to serve WHOLE HEARTedly. "Whole" implies ALL of who we are- not just our minds, or our bodies, but our spirit and emotions also engaging completely in service to Him. That requires beaucoup energy (good thing He's strong when we're weak! And "Heart" is there, because I believe that God doesn't want us just to follow rules with our minds. He wants us to surrender our hearts to His love.

HONOR THE LORD

I believe God gives us some practical ways to live out honoring Him. And I think that how we handle these two things reveal the true state of our hearts: money and sex. The first is found in Proverbs 3:9. "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops." (See also Matthew 6:21). Are we giving God our firstfruits in our tithes and offerings to Him? Are we being good stewards of what He entrusts us with? (Matthew 25:14-30). Secondly, we see we are to honor God with our bodies (I Corinthians 6:20). In this passage, Paul is referring to sexual sins, and implies that when we are sexually impure, that we are not honoring God. Sex outside of marriage not only damages us, but it draws us away from the abundant life we could know if we honored God. I believe we can also apply this scripture to what and how much or little we eat, how often we exercise, and if we're getting enough rest and water. But I'm biased- I am a personal trainer. J

PUT AWAY IDOLS

I totally don't mean to come across disrespectful, but I just don't see how people in the Bible could not see how ludicrous they must've looked to be bowing down to a piece of wood or gold. Especially when they had the power and skill to chop, carve, and mold it! That just seems absolutely bizarre to me that they would create something and all of a sudden it's "god." (God thinks it's bizarre, too, see Isaiah 44). But, I also have a double standard, when I bow down to busyness, or power, money, fame, reputation, family, time, food, or my ipod…

OBEY HIM ALONE

Mmmmmm. Yummy. I love obedience. I don't like what I am asked to do or not do most of the time, but I absolutely love the brilliance of God that I discover when I obey. When I actually do what He has commanded me, it's like I gain understanding into WHY I was to do it, and it reveals to me how much He really does love me. Try it! And I John 4:19 tells me that when I understand how much He really loves me, I can then love Him back. Obedience leads me to love God more. And isn't LOVE what it's all about anyway (I Corinthians 13:13)?!

And really, all these things above are saying the same thing. If we LOVE HIM more than anything, 1 John says, we'll live like it by obeying Him. And when we obey, we are loving, honoring and serving Him. And here's where we bring Joshua 24 home. When you rush from one thing to the next today, will you put away the "idol" of your busyness in order to stop and give a listening ear to someone God puts in your path? When you have to choose between reading your Bible or watching TV, will you listen to what He wants you to do, and obey? When your co-worker or friend asks you to help on a project, will you serve God by serving them? Would you serve God by cleaning something up that you didn't mess up? When you're driving, will you honor God by honoring the laws put in place for us? It's in the little things - those small, everyday choices - that lead to a life of obeying God in the big things. I believe that's how we create a history and a legacy we'll be happy to leave for those who come after us, and how we'll store up treasures for our incredible eternal future with Christ (Matthew 6:20).