- Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God. Joshua 23:11 – In the middle of God’s blessing can be the times we are most tempted to walk away from Him. This is why as the passage states we need to be careful to make sure we are continuing to choose to love God with our life. See for the people Joshua was speaking this to, they had received all that God had promised to them and were comfortable in their blessing. Yet all around them were still neighboring lands with other “gods” they could be tempted to worship. What Joshua knew, and what God knew, was that while they are now in this promised land, they now had more temptations than ever to walk away from God and follow after something else. This can easily be the case for us. As we continue to set our lives after what God wants us to, our enemy will surround us with temptations that weren’t there before. We just have to be careful to not stop loving God with our lives by choosing to follow after one of these temptations. Temptations to stop living for God will always be there and even grow as we follow God more deeply with our lives. Yet if God helped you conquer your past struggles with temptations, He can help you with whatever may come up in the future if you continue to lean on Him. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac
- Joshua 23 Daily DEVO Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God. Joshua 23:11 – If you’re taking some kids on a nature hike and come across a cliff edge, when the kids want to approach the edge what do you say? Be careful! Why? Because it’s so easy to be careless and not be thinking about the edge and they could find themselves getting hurt. Here this is the message Joshua was telling his people and God is telling us. Be careful to love God. Be careful because it’s so easy to be careless about it and find ourselves going throughout the day and throughout our life not thinking about Him or how we can be living for Him. It’s so easy for us to slip off the edge and find ourselves living a life that’s only about us and not about Him. Be careful then, be watchful and thoughtful on how you are living your life today. Are you at the center of it or God? Is your agenda the one getting accomplished or God’s? Let the closing of this day, and everyday, be filled with the confidence that it was about God and about loving Him with our life. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 1187
- Joshua 23 – Pastor Mac Daily DEVO Therefore, be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left, 7 that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them, 8 but you shall cling to the Lord your God just as you have done to this day. Joshua 23:6-8 – It’s been years since the division of land, Joshua’s death is soon, and he gathers all the people together once again to share his heart for the nation. His message: remain faithful to the Lord. Don’t turn, don’t mix with other nations, don’t even mention their gods by name. Joshua knew that a full turn away may not happen immediately, but if the people slowly started to let these nations and their false gods mix in with them, the gradual turn away from the Lord would begin. We too need to be wise with how we handle sinful things. Sure, an immediate cannonball into sinful behavior may not happen today, but if we allow things that lead to sin to mix into our story, we too can find ourselves gradually turning away from the Lord. Maybe it looks like allowing a certain person in your life, who isn’t a believer, be a voice you let direct how you see the world. Possibly this could look like finding yourself spending more time alone online then you used to or putting off studying scripture another day. Small, and maybe not sinful in itself, but it is allowing sinful behaviors to “mix” into the pace of your life. Be wise then what you allow to mix in with your story. Let’s fill our life with things that will encourage our steady walk with Jesus. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2482
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