Do you casually dismiss what God says about sin? Learn from this sad interlude in the life of Joshua.

Joshua 7  Joshua may have been the ‘never.look.back’ man, but even he faced trials and like us, he too sometimes fell flat on his face seeking answers. Take the case of the sin of Achan. The victory at Jericho spurred Israel on and after scouting out the territory of the next city, felt a small force could take it. How wrong they were; 36 men died in that battle and the residents of Ai had a victory party.

Joshua fell on his face before God and his prayer is an echo of what the Israelites had said to Moses over a 40 yr period as they wailed and complained to God. But God was less than happy with his chosen leader and responded “Get up! Why are you lying there face down?” Sometimes God has to do that with us as well. It isn’t God’s fault that we are in this pickle, but our own sin. Unbeknown to Joshua, there was sin in the camp. God challenged Joshua to take steps to eradicate the sin and the sinner and we must do likewise. Even though the Israelites had heard of God’s directive of the ban on all things in Jericho, Achan had casually dismissed it. How like us. We know what God desires but we fail to think ahead to the consequences of disobedience. Do you dismiss sin? Do you think “God will understand.”  Unlike us, God does not dismiss sin but demands purity and righteousness. We foolishly think our sin only affects us. Be forewarned; “be sure your sin will find you out.” [Num 32:23]

Learn from this sad interlude. Allow the Holy Spirit to prick your heart of any sin that lurks there so that God can bless us.

Photo courtesy of: John-Mark Smith/Unsplash + caption