This declaration of the old, warrior-leader Joshua reverberates through the hallways of time and speaks loudly to us now in the 21st century. Joshua was a retiring leader who had been thinking about what he could say and do to make his last public declaration unequivocal. This man of God had come to a decision years ago but was now making it public so that others might understand his successful personal life and follow his example. Of course he realized he couldn\u2019t control what others chose to do, but he knew what he and his family would do. Inside their home, this family had been and would continue to be one that served God.<\/p>\n
This kind of public pronouncement confronts a cowardly way of thinking that permeates our culture. Many today would struggle with how Joshua included his family in his declaration of intent. Shouldn’t his wife and kids be allowed to choose their own religious pathways? While it is possible to abuse the position of spiritual leadership in families, in our day, most families desperately need the leader of the home to stand up and say, \u201cWe will worship God.\u201d\u00a0 Husbands and wives, as well as single parents, need to take a stand for their family\u2019s spiritual health. Family leaders need to show leadership, making a commitment to take action. Some of us reading this need to be the kind of spiritual leader Joshua was 3200 years ago.<\/p>\n
Another part of this verse seems to scream out to this generation as well, \u201cchoose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.\u201d Choice is a God-given capacity that we must exercise constantly, continually, every day. We are confronted daily with choices of who and what we will serve. Songwriter Bob Dylan wrote years ago, ”You’re gonna have to serve somebody.” It\u2019s true. Who will you chose to serve today?<\/p>\n
“LORD, we desire You. Forgive us for faltering and making bad choices. Today, we chose You.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n =============================================================<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joshua 24 KJV<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1<\/sup>\u00a0And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God.\u00a02<\/sup>\u00a0And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the\u00a0LORD\u00a0God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time,\u00a0even\u00a0<\/em>Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.\u00a03<\/sup>\u00a0And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.\u00a04<\/sup>\u00a0And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.\u00a05<\/sup>\u00a0I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out.\u00a06<\/sup>\u00a0And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and ye came unto the sea; and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and horsemen unto the Red sea.\u00a07<\/sup>\u00a0And when they cried unto the\u00a0LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt: and ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season.\u00a08<\/sup>\u00a0And I brought you into the land of the Amorites, which dwelt on the other side Jordan; and they fought with you: and I gave them into your hand, that ye might possess their land; and I destroyed them from before you.\u00a09<\/sup>Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you:\u00a010<\/sup>\u00a0But I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand.\u00a011<\/sup>\u00a0And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I delivered them into your hand.\u00a012<\/sup>\u00a0And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you,\u00a0even\u00a0<\/em>the two kings of the Amorites;\u00a0but\u00a0<\/em>not with thy sword, nor with thy bow.\u00a013<\/sup>\u00a0And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat. 14<\/sup>\u00a0Now therefore fear the\u00a0LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the\u00a0LORD. 15<\/sup>\u00a0And if it seem evil unto you to serve the\u00a0LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that\u00a0were\u00a0<\/em>on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the\u00a0LORD.\u00a016<\/sup>\u00a0And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the\u00a0LORD, to serve other gods;\u00a017<\/sup>\u00a0For the\u00a0LORD\u00a0our God, he\u00a0it is\u00a0<\/em>that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed:\u00a018<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land:\u00a0therefore\u00a0<\/em>will we also serve the\u00a0LORD; for he\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>our God.\u00a019<\/sup>\u00a0And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the\u00a0LORD: for he\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>an holy God; he\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.\u00a0\u00a020<\/sup>\u00a0If ye forsake the\u00a0LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good.\u00a021<\/sup>And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the\u00a0LORD.\u00a022<\/sup>\u00a0And Joshua said unto the people, Ye\u00a0are\u00a0<\/em>witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the\u00a0LORD, to serve him. And they said,\u00a0We are\u00a0<\/em>witnesses.\u00a023<\/sup>\u00a0Now therefore put away,\u00a0said he\u00a0<\/em>, the strange gods which\u00a0are\u00a0<\/em>among you, and incline your heart unto the\u00a0LORD\u00a0God of Israel.\u00a024<\/sup>\u00a0And the people said unto Joshua, The\u00a0LORD\u00a0our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.\u00a025<\/sup>\u00a0So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. 26<\/sup> And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>by the sanctuary of the\u00a0LORD.\u00a027<\/sup>\u00a0And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.\u00a028<\/sup>\u00a0So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance. 29<\/sup>\u00a0And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the\u00a0LORD, died,\u00a0being\u00a0<\/em>an hundred and ten years old.\u00a030<\/sup>\u00a0And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash.\u00a031<\/sup>\u00a0And Israel served the\u00a0LORD\u00a0all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the\u00a0LORD, that he had done for Israel. 32<\/sup>\u00a0And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.\u00a0\u00a033<\/sup>\u00a0And Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in a hill\u00a0that pertained to<\/em>Phinehas his son, which was given him in mount Ephraim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This declaration of the old, warrior-leader Joshua reverberates through the hallways of time and speaks loudly to us now in the 21st century. Joshua was a retiring leader who had been thinking about what he could say and do to make his last public declaration unequivocal. This man of God had come to a decision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6227"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16075,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227\/revisions\/16075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}