Contagion

I was just reading in Joshua 7 (go read it)about the Israelites being super confident that they could defeat the city of Ai but when they tried, they were completely surprised to see Ai defeat them. It was such a surprise because they had just shouted and the walls of Jericho crumbled at their feet and now a little tiny city defeats them.

I can sense Joshua's frustration wih the whole thing. Here they are a might force to be reckoned with and the unspeakable happens. God later reveals that someone stole something from Canaan when it should have been given to God. Achan is found out and then stoned him and his family to death with their bodies being burned afterwards.

Yikes! That's some serious punishment. Now I'm not sure if this should be the punishment for sin today or not. I know I probably deserve it sometimes. But what I really got out of this is how easy it is to take sin lightly when God doesn't take it lightly at all. In fact the punishment is death Thankfully Jesus is our mediator and satisfied the wrath of God with his death on the cross. However, I don't think that means that we are still under God's grace. So many people think that God's grace covers them when they are leading lives of blatant sin and rebellion. I'm not sure this is the case.

I like to think of God's grace as an umbrella. When we sin, we turn our backs on God and in essence say to God that we don't need his grace. So we step out from under that grace umbrella.

I believe it's in this place that Israel found themselves. They thought God was still fighting for them but clearly he wasn't because someone chose to sin, this pulling the whole group out from under the umbrella with him.

I never want to get to the place where I take sin so lightly that I think I can just go on leading my life the way I want to, still expecting God to show me his grace. I just don't think God forces his grace on us when our actions show we don't want it. I never want to get to the place where we as a faith community are making headway in the spiritual realm with people getting connected to Jesus that we forget we are winning because God is fighting for us. That it's not our strength or talent that is making things happen. That apart from God we're pretty hopeless.

So we need to ask ourselves, do we have anything buried that belongs to God? (by the way, He knows you're hiding it which means it's not actually hidden!) Is there any part of who we are that we've given to something or someone else that belongs to God. And finally, how long do we think we're gonna get away with it? All I can say is I'm gonna start digging. I've got to much to lose to keep hiding it.