Choose Whom You Will Serve

 

Joshua 24: 14- 28

 

Choose Whom You Will Serve

“Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.   And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed.   And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore, we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.  If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.”   And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord.”   Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.”   He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel.”  And the people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey.”   So, Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and put in place statutes and rules for them at Shechem.  And Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone and set it up there under the terebinth that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.   And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us. Therefore, it shall be a witness against you, lest you deal falsely with your God.”   So, Joshua sent the people away, every man to his inheritance.

I believe the Church of the USA as of this date 2020, is at a crossroad,  and it is the same question the people who had ender the promised land had to answer, Choose Whom You Will Serve.  As a nation we lost sight of what the Church is, it is not a building, nor a denomination.  We find the answer of its makeup in 1 Corinthians 12;12-14, Unity and Diversity in the Body

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.   For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so, the body is not made up of one part but of many.”   Also, in Ephesians 1:16-23, we see Jesus as the head of the Church, not anyone else.  ^“I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,  that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,  having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,  and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,  far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,  which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

 

I wonder if you could worship a person who you have accepted as the head, but it is not Jesus.  If so God is a jealous God and that person has become an idol that God will not accept, so it is time to come back to the Bible and find out what is the Church of the Living God.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice