Serve God from the Heart not the Head

In MacArthur’s closing speech to the nation, he said: “I am closing my fifty-two years of military service. When I joined the army even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all ... More

Commitment

Joshua comes back with a reply that is perhaps one of the most shocking statements of the Old Testament (v. 19). After spending an entire lifetime of trying to get the Israelites to commit to serving God, and after getting the affirmative answer he was seeking, Joshua says: “You cannot serve the Lord.” Joshua goes on and gives two reasons for his startling statement: God is holy, and God is jealous. Up until now, the focus has been on all the things God has done. Suddenly the focus is on who God is. Joshua’s purpose in saying “You cannot serve the Lord” is to call them to a deeper commitmentbased not on God’s actions, but on God’s character. Serving God with only your head and not your heart will give us the wrong answer to life’s questions (vv. 23-24). Realizing that further words would be fruitless, Joshua solemnly renewed the covenant (vv.25-26). The covenant between Israel and God was that the people would worship and obey the Lord alone. Their purpose was to be a holy nation that would influence the rest of the world for God. The conquest of Canaan was a means to achieve this purpose, but Israel became preoccupied with the land and lost sight of the Lord God. The same can happen in our life. We can spend so much time on the means that we forget to finish well.  

The book ends with three burials. (1) Joshua died at the age of 110 and was buried with honor in Timnath-serah (vv. 29-30). There is no record of any great memorial built for him. There were ten memorial stones placed in the land during Joshua’s lifetime, and they were all memorials to God and what God did. (2) Joseph’s bones had been brought up out of bondage and carried through the wilderness, and finally he rested in the land that Jacob had purchased (v. 32). (3) Eleazar the high priest, the son of Aaron, was buried at Gibeah, the town of his son Phinehas (v. 33).

Application

Scripture doesn’t leave room for sitting on the fence, by saying, “I’ll serve God,” but then doing things on my own. God asks for my full commitment.

Joshua 24:19-33 (English Standard Version)


Warning: MagpieRSS: Failed to parse RSS file. (Space required at line 39, column 24) in /var/www/html/familytimes/includes/magpie6-1/rss_fetch.inc on line 230

Warning: array_slice() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /var/www/html/familytimes/includes/rss/esvLookup.php on line 15

View this passage in NIV (Bible Gateway) »