Day 112
Joshua 1:1-2:24, Luke 21:5-38, Proverbs 10:11-20
The promised land is in sight, the Jordan needs to be crossed and the Israelites will be there. The people have recognised Joshua as the successor to Moses and the game is on. A number of times Joshua is told to "be strong and courageous", leading the whole people of Israel must be a daunting task, following in the footsteps of Moses must have been an equally scary prospect, they are some shoes to fill! He has been called by God to this role though and he is equipped by God for all that it will involve. His first tasks are almost war-like leadership roles. He rallies the troops and he sends out spies. He is in charge and he starts off running.
The story of those spies also points us to places that we have been to before. God uses all kinds of people. Here he uses a prostitute to help his spies, someone that you may not expect to be in the employ of God, and yet we have seen him use many people that we would not have expected. There are two sides to this coin though, those we need to listen to that we may not expect God to be speaking through, and then those in the Gospel. The people that Jesus warns us about, those who may come in his name, may proclaim the coming of the Kingdom, they are the ones that we need to watch. Our eyes need to be focused on the Lord and the Lord alone.
It feels a little ironic, we have spent much of the time in Deuteronomy in warnings and yet here Jesus is with quite a few warnings. There are practical words that have their fulfilment in the worldly and the spiritual, such as the destruction of the temple, which does happen in 70AD, and then there is the eternal reality of what Jesus is saying.
It is the eternal question that we can all ask. When? We can ask "When?" in relation to earthly things and the things of the Lord, and the answer we find in Christ. It is when we keep our focus on him that we can find the answer. It may come from unexpected places but we have to test those places and see them through Gospel lenses..
The promised land is in sight, the Jordan needs to be crossed and the Israelites will be there. The people have recognised Joshua as the successor to Moses and the game is on. A number of times Joshua is told to "be strong and courageous", leading the whole people of Israel must be a daunting task, following in the footsteps of Moses must have been an equally scary prospect, they are some shoes to fill! He has been called by God to this role though and he is equipped by God for all that it will involve. His first tasks are almost war-like leadership roles. He rallies the troops and he sends out spies. He is in charge and he starts off running.
The story of those spies also points us to places that we have been to before. God uses all kinds of people. Here he uses a prostitute to help his spies, someone that you may not expect to be in the employ of God, and yet we have seen him use many people that we would not have expected. There are two sides to this coin though, those we need to listen to that we may not expect God to be speaking through, and then those in the Gospel. The people that Jesus warns us about, those who may come in his name, may proclaim the coming of the Kingdom, they are the ones that we need to watch. Our eyes need to be focused on the Lord and the Lord alone.
It feels a little ironic, we have spent much of the time in Deuteronomy in warnings and yet here Jesus is with quite a few warnings. There are practical words that have their fulfilment in the worldly and the spiritual, such as the destruction of the temple, which does happen in 70AD, and then there is the eternal reality of what Jesus is saying.
It is the eternal question that we can all ask. When? We can ask "When?" in relation to earthly things and the things of the Lord, and the answer we find in Christ. It is when we keep our focus on him that we can find the answer. It may come from unexpected places but we have to test those places and see them through Gospel lenses..
Comments
Post a Comment