When forced to stand at the crossroads of belief and unbelief, God’s people choose belief! God’s people risk believing!
Nowhere is this better exemplified than in Joshua’s story. You could argue that the central message of the book of Joshua is this headline: “God keeps his promises. Trust him.” The three verses of Joshua 21: 43-45are the heart of the book.
Three times Joshua declares: God did what he said he would do.
“The LORD gave all He had sworn to give.” (verse 43)
“The LORD gave rest according to all that He had sworn to their fathers.” (verse 44)
“Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken. All came to pass.” (verse 45)
Learn from Joshua. Take a risk. Believe in God. He will do what he has said he will do.
“Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them.” Deuteronomy 11:16
Our God is so amazing. Majestic. Gracious. Loving. We may think, “I would never serve another.” But tragically, it happens all the time. People who have known and loved God — sometimes for many years — turn aside and begin to worship other gods. It seems impossible. How does it happen?
The problem, Scripture warns, is that our hearts can be deceived. The Hebrew word implies being “lured” or “enticed.” It’s the word used for how Samson’s wife enticed him into revealing the secret of his power.
The world is full of bright, shining, incredibly desirable enticements. Look into your own heart. You know what tugs at it there. Those enticements seem so desirable, but they have a fatal capacity to deceive. Over time their place in our heart expands. God’s place shrinks. Imperceptibly, spiritual deception grows. Almost without knowing it, we can end up worshiping these enticements more than the real God.
The deception is thinking that it won’t matter, that God will be OK with divided loyalties, satisfied with a small corner of our life. He is not. “Worship only the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt with great strength and a powerful arm. Bow down to him alone, and offer sacrifices only to him” (2 Kings 17:36).
Even King David, a man after God’s own heart, fell victim to this deception. “Oh, guard my soul,” he writes (Psalm 25:20). It’s a good prayer for all of us!
Lord, I am so easily enticed. I want to worship you alone. Guard my soul. Build in me a true heart for you above all other things. Amen.
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