Joshua Chapters 22-24

22:3 - This would be a great verse to be read at a funeral. I would love for someone to stand up and say that I didn't forsake my brothers and I didn't forsake the call that God placed on my life....and now it is time for me to go home to my real inheritance. That would be really great. Great verse to live your life to honor.

22:10 - For a second you get scared after reading this verse. It's like...seriously...you guys are really gonna turn away from God right after He gave you the Promised Land? Seriously! But as we continue reading, we see the story has a little twist...

22:15ff - Fortunately, the leaders of Israel decide to talk to the people who built the altar before they charge in and slaughter everyone. They have a conversation first...they ask questions and get clarifications, before they do anything rash. This can teach us alot about how to deal with conflict - before you do anything you're going to regret...talk to the person!

22:24ff - It's all good! They built the altar so they never forget who they are and so that the Jews on the other side of the Jordan don't forget that they both follow the same God. Nothing wrong with that! In fact, I think they actually lay day a nice challenge for current day Christians. Our lives should be an altar that proclaims our commitment to the Lord. There is often times when Christians have a huge gap between their church lives and their personal lives...you could easily look at them and say, "You aren't one of our brothers! We don't serve the same God!" Yet if our lives were shaped by our faith whether at church, at work, or home - they would stand out as a reminder of what we believe to all who saw.

23:7 - American Christians have kinda blown it with this one. We have been molded and shaped by our culture, and we bow down to their gods - greed, pride, wealth, power, self-worship, etc.

23:14 - God never fails to do what He has promised. Never forget!

24:20ff - I thought it was interesting that Joshua really pushed back on the people of Israel...he really wants them to count the cost of discipleship. They make a great speech about serving God and he says - "You sure about this? God is jealous and expects u to keep your word!" They make the covenant anyway and as we will see in the next book of the Bible - they pay a heavy price when they break the covenant they have made with God. Maybe Christian churches of today should be a little more adamant about the cost of discipleship...it seems like sometimes we offer a gospel and a faith up to people that is actually pretty easy to follow...but there is nothing easy about making a covenant with Jesus Christ. Maybe we should take a page from Josh's book.

Joshua Chapters 19-21

20:9 - I love that God always includes foreigners and aliens in His justice and mercy. They are not Israelites, but they are not treated as second class citizens...they are given the same rights as the Jews and treated fairly. I think this shows again God's heart for all people - something Western Christians need to keep in mind.

21:8 - I find this verse and the verses before it interesting, because it hits so close to home for me. The Levitical priesthood served God in the tabernacle and received no inheritance of land like the other tribes, so all the other tribes chipped in together to take care of them. I know things have changed a great deal when it comes to modern ministry leadership, but there is a real sacrifice that vocational ministers make when they choose to pursue full-time ministry. To put it bluntly, a 32 year old man with a degree, working on his masters with 10 years at the same job in the secular market would probably be making significantly more than I make (I'm not complaining...I came into ministry thinking I was going to be a lifelong pauper - we are doing just fine - I'm just saying...there is sacrifice). Yet the body of believers now as they did then chip in together to take care of the ministry leadership. I think that is really cool. Where else do you see people choosing to give some of their hard earned money to support others? I want to say thank you for those of you that chip in and say that the inheritance of changed lives we get to see outdoes any 401-K.

21:13,21,27,38 - Here's an interesting question - did you notice how many of the cities of refuge were given to the Levites? What do you think? Did they give them these cities because they thought the men of the priesthood would be better judges, or did they give them the cities of refuge because they didn't want to deal with the hassle of people running to them being chased by blood thirsty relatives of dead people? Comment on your thoughts.

21:43-45 - How beautiful is that passage. Here is what you can know 100% about God - God keeps His promises! That never changes...from old testament to new testament - God keeps His promises. Take heart in that awesome truth!

Joshua Chapters 16-18

Here is a cheesy map I found showing the tribes of Israel. These chapters we are covering can be a bit dry, so look for the little nuggets of awesomeness within them.

16:10 - There are multiple occasions throughout the chapters of Joshua concerning the allotment of the land, where we see Gentile people allowed to live int he midst of the Israelites. There are a couple of different options here. Maybe these people humbled themselves before God and were spared because of belief. We have seen numerous instances in the OT where God is not concerned with ethnicity...He is concerned with faith. On the other hand, maybe the Israelites have failed, yet again, to do what God instructed them to do (i.e. clearing out the land) and these people will be the catalyst for future spiritual rebellion in Israel. Either option is feasible. God is merciful with those who humble themselves before Him, and when God-fearers fail to remove temptation and sinfulness from their lives they frequently turn away from God and towards sin.

17:13 - I find it kinda sad that the Israelites have traded their slavery in Egypt for becoming slave masters in their Promised Land. Though the Promised Land is a blessing for the Israelites themselves, it has become a curse for those who are forced into slave labor. I'm pretty certain this is not what God wanted for His people. God often allows the Israelites to choose their own path, even when it is contrary to what He wants for them...obviously, they also reap the rewards of choosing to ignore the way of God. God wants to be the king of His people, but they want a human king like everybody else...so they get kings who tax the people, and lead the kingdom astray. God wants His people to be married to one man and one woman (see "the garden"), yet He allows them to marry multiple women and we have seen the craziness that ensues after that. I'm sure God wants His people to be just and merciful like He is, but His people choose to treat others like they have been treated when it comes to slavery and foreign people remain a thorn in the side of Israel forever. Are there specific areas of your life where you refuse to follow God's path? What are the consequences of your actions in those areas?

Joshua Chapters 13-15

I am traveling in the morning and will try my best to comment later...please feel free to share your own thoughts on these chapters.

Joshua Chapters 10 - 12

Wow - this is some really tough reading. Three chapters of absolute genocide. What do we do with that? How do we react to it? Well, we start by remembering that God is good and just and always does what it right. Knowing that about God, we can approach these texts from a better perspective.

10:11 - Pretty weird reminder that God is the one who does all the work. Here he does the work with a bunch of death bringing hailstorms. All followers of God today, we should always do our best to serve Him passionately and effectively, but we can also put our trust in the fact that God is the one really doing the hard work. God is gonna fill in where our weaknesses would bring failure and God is going to do so much more with our lives and ministries than could ever be imagined.

10:13-14 - The Sun stands still so the Israelites can have more time to kill their enemies? Whoa. What happened there? Well, to be honest, we have no idea. Some people think that God just stopped the rotation of the earth, but scientists have never been able to find any discrepancies in space that would support that. Maybe He just slowed the earth down enough to make the day really long, yet it didn't cause any noticeable cosmic changes. Maybe God refracted light from the other side of the earth to make it seem like day stayed the whole time. Maybe God just created another source of light for the day - he can do that if He wants to. We just don't know for sure - we weren't there. What we do know is that Joshua didn't really care about the sun standing still. That is not what impresses him...what impresses Joshua is that God listened to him. Joshua prays for victory and it says that something happened that had never been experienced before or after - God fought on the side of human beings. He sided with Joshua and fought for him. That's what blows Joshua's mind!

11:4ff - When are these people going to learn? How many nations and kingdoms need to be wiped out before they figure it out. Thus far in Joshua, only one group has tried to make peace with the Israelites and those people are the only ones still living. It reminds me of us. When are we going to learn. We know how destructive selfish, sinful stuff is to our lives, but we keep going back to it. When are we going to give up trying to go our own way and offer ourselves humbly to God?

11:19-20 - It says that God hardened the kings hearts so that they would attack the Israelites. Why would He do that? If He left them alone, would they have maybe tried to make peace. I don't think so - remember that God is just and righteous. I believe that God is simply speeding up the timetable on their future rebellion so it fits within the time frame of His plan. If He can slow down the sun or make it stop, then I bet He can speed up the descent through which somebody utterly rebels against Him.

* So far in the book of Joshua, we see that every people group who have fought against the people of God are utterly wiped out. The one group that sought peace with His people are left alive. God is not randomly setting people up for genocide - He is protecting His people and doling out judgement. When people groups attack God, they pay for it (Later we see when the Israelites betray God and rebel against Him that they pay for that too).

Joshua Chapters 7-9

6:3 - Why all the pomp and circumstance? Why the trumpets and the marching? Because it needs to be clear that it is God that crushes the people of Jericho and not the Israelites by their own power. If they had attacked and scaled the walls, people might have thought it was human power not divine...with the marching and trumpets there is not doubt.

6:17 - God's judgement is never about ethnicity, it is about the condition of the heart. Everyone in Jericho had the opportunity to react as Rahab did, but they did not.

7:11-12 - Jericho was a sacrifice to God...Achan stole God's sacrifice, defiled the offering to God. That's generally not a good thing.

7:26 - In answer to defiling the sacrifice and stealing what was dedicated to God, Achan and his family have to pay the ultimate price. For her sins, they were sacrificed along with the things they stole.

8:5ff - I really like that God expects His people to be creative and wise. Did you notice that they don't just roll up to Ai and attack? they still use their intelligence and strategy to pull off an incredible victory. This is really good leadership insight. Leaders shouldn't just show up expecting God to do everything for them...God has gifted us uniquely for a reason.

8:26 - They are consecrating the land, making it holy by destroying he evil within it.

8:34 - I love that they never fail to remember who they are ad why they have had success. W can learn alot from that.

9:24 - Again, we see heart of God for all people. These non-Jewish people are spared because they believed in the power of God and they humbled themselves before Him.

Joshua Chapters 4 - 6

Please post your comments...

Joshua Chapters 1 - 3

Hey, I am slammed at work right now and cannot put a good blog in, so please feel free to comment and I will spend some time catching up tomorrow...

Deuteronomy Chapters 31-34

Let's finish this bad boy out!

31:12 - The way Moses describes their gatherings reminds me of the mission of church gatherings. Why do we get together? We gather together so that we never forget who we belong to. We gather together to remind each other that we are the body of Christ...we gather together to encourage one another to live out our beliefs. Is that what is happening at our church? I hope so.

31:16 - Imagine you have spent a huge chunk of your life leading a people out of slavery, into a relationship with the one true God in existence and taking them to the Promised Land. Now imagine that when you are about to die, God tells you how these people you have given everything to are going to turn away from Him...they are going to destroy everything Moses has worked towards. Not very fun is it?

32:6 - How do you respond to the love of God? Do you repay God with obedience and honor or self-indulgence and rebellion? Very challenging words from Moses - "Is that how you repay the Lord?" It is foolishness to give God anything but your everything.

32:32 - When you are connected into something - rooted in something - that is where you get your sustenance. If we make sure our lives our rooted into God - if He is the vine we are connected to - we will get clean, pure, life-giving sustenance. If we are attached to the systems of this world, we will be filled with corrupt, toxic, death-bringing sustenance. And sustenance that does not sustain us is no sustenance at all!

32:51 - God loves Moses. Moses is described as a man of God...at the end of this book, he is described as a man who was closer to God than any human would ever be. Yet, there were still consequences for his sinful actions. Some people think that when they become Christian or give their life to God that all the things from their past will magically go away, but that is not how justice works. We need to be like Moses and accept the consequences of our actions, while living to honor God in the now.

34:9 - I know that something powerful and spiritual was taking place between God and Joshua to give Joshua the ability to lead that he would need. But I also believe that Joshua was able to lead because Moses did a really good job of mentoring him. We see throughout Deuteronomy that Moses always takes Joshua along with him when he is making big decisions...he walked Joshua through leadership step by step and trained up his replacement. Joshua was able to lead because Moses taught him how to lead. Joshua is a part of Moses' legacy. What is the legacy that you are leaving behind?

Deuteronomy Chapters 28-30

Whoa! There is some pretty intense stuff in there. Never accuse the bible of candy-coating anything...we get the raw in your face version of truth. If you follow God, things will go well for you. If you don't, well...

28:12 - Because Moses is talking to a people - a nation - I thought alot about America throughout these chapters. I know the fit is not perfect, because the Israelites were people in a covenant relationships with God...but there is still a great deal that is applicable to the U.S. - especially if you are talking about Christians in the U.S. who are in a covenant relationship with God! If a nation has been blessed by God with an abundance of resources - they should use that to help others in need. Wealth is not given to corrupt (It often does, but that is not the goal)...it is given so that the wealthy may be able to bless others.

28:25 - They became a "horror to all the kingdoms of the earth." I can't help but think about the poor countries of the world who look at the United States as vile and evil. I realize part of the issue is propaganda from the media sources in those countries, but some of it we bring upon ourselves. There are countries that have extreme poverty and sickness, yet they can look disgustedly upon the US because of the corruption they see coming from us. What can believers do to change that?

28:47 - This is an interesting verse. Do you think the abundance of things actually led the people away from God? Were they so blessed that they eventually rejected God? Is that what too much of a good thing does to you? Sometimes I think human beings are absolutely insane. When God allows people to be blessed...when He gives us more than we need...we start to think we don;t need Him anymore. The abundance of goodness can sometimes lead us to evil. Why do we do that?

28:55ff - These are some of the most disgusting verses in all of scripture. Moses is prophesying that there will come a time when people are so desperate for food that they will be hoarding the flesh of their children only for themselves! That is insanely repulsive! When people allow themselves to turn their back on God and serve only themselves - they walk the path of selfishness. The basest instinct of selfishness is survival at all costs...they reject God and they become like animals, thinking only of themselves and how to stay alive.

29:14 - This covenant was made for all the generations of Israel...even the ones who were not there or not born yet. I like this verse, because we are a part of those people who are not there. Through Jesus Christ we have been given access into this covenant...we are a part of the people of God and it is a beautiful thing.

29:19 - When you know what you are supposed to do and you do not do it, you heap curses and dire consequences on your life. How many times have I made excuses in my life for not doing what I know I am supposed to do? Listen to the person in the verse saying, "Hey, it's all right, I'm gonna be safe." They are walking in the stubbornness of their heart...walking away from God and thinking everything is perfect. That's a dangerous place to be.

30:18ff - This sums up everything in chapters 28-30 very well. The choice is right there for every one of us. What are you going to choose - life or death. It really is that simply. Yeah, there are a bunch of laws that are covered in the OT books we've read so far, but it all comes down to a simple choice - life or death. God or yourself. If you choose to give yourself fully to God, those other things are going to fall in place, and you will experience the abundant life that comes along with being connected to God. If you choose to serve yourself only, you choose the emptiness and death that comes along with that.