I love how throughout the Bible God gives us insight on how He works with his people. For example, Joshua:23 tells us God provided rest for His people. He gave Israel this rest because He gave them the supernatural strength to defeat the enemies that stood in their way of possessing the land God had given them.
We read in the previous blog, how God allowed them to defeat numerous kings and their kingdoms. In verse 6 of Chapter 23, we see God is asking them to be courageous to keep and do all the things Moses wrote in the book of the law not turning to the right or left. Today, God continues to expect us to be courageous in our journey with Him. Although, Jesus has come to bear our sins, we still should have a heart, a courageous heart to not willfully sin before God. This is the importance of our intimate relationship with God. He knows our heart. He knows the difference between lip-service to Him and heart-service to Him (Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 15:8).
Joshua: 23 goes on further to tell us about God’s passion for His people and he urges them not to go back to their old ways. He then warns them if they do, He will no longer protect them, cover them, and bring evil things to them until it destroys them (v. 15). Whoa! The chapter ends in verse 16 with God’s anger being kindled against them if they turn from Him and tells them they will perish!
Deuteronomy 4:24 characterized God as a consuming fire and jealous. One of the reasons God’s anger is so strong is because He hates sin. Why? Because yes, sin destroy us, and that angers God. This is how deeply He loves us. It starts with our pride and thinking we know better than God. From there, we start doing our own thing like the children of Israel and everything goes downhill from there. We see it time and time again throughout the Bible. The same thing happened to Satan and he became separated from God eternally. We always talk about a God of love, but we serve a God of anger. This is just one example the Bible warns about what sin does to us. Bottom line is it separates us from God. It removes God’s promises from our lives. So, God will fight for us. He will fight our battles, He will give us rest, but He will also turn against us, if we turn from him…Take heed. Love & Blessings!