Our God is faithful and we can trust that He will do exactly what He says he will do! This is the message we read in Joshua as God divides up the Promised Land to the tribes of Israel. Here we see the fruition of the covenant God made with Abraham that He will make a great nation from his descendants. Through all the wandering and complaining and battles, the people of Israel can finally rest in a land that is theirs. The relief they must have felt—the joy they must have experienced—surely lifted the people up to the highest of spiritual highs!
The amazing thing about God is that He is constantly proving His faithfulness. We read it again in Luke with the arrival of the Messiah that creation has been longing for since that horrible first bite of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden. This time, however, there were only a few people who felt the elation and joy that comes from seeing God be God and prove His trustworthiness. One thing is certain though; Elizabeth, Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, and Anna all shared the same spiritual high that the people of Israel felt when Joshua was helping divvy up the land.
This is the same high that we sometimes get when God moves in our lives, when we catch a glimpse of the Almighty’s glory in our world, when Jesus does transforming work in our hearts. It is so good when we see God fulfilling His promises, but we must be on guard to make sure that we do not lose sight of God’s goodness. Our hearts can be very forgetful and not remember what Jesus has done in us, for us, and through us.
We must be careful to not repeat the folly of the Israelites who as is written in the Book of Judges “did evil in the eyes of the Lord.” No, we must purpose in our hearts to take heed of Joshua’s words and “be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to keep his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.” And with the Holy Spirit’s enablement, we can remember God’s faithfulness and we can hold fast to the promises we make to serve the Lord.
-Darren Bute
(Youth Pastor)