Joshua Pt 8

What do we have to over come?

So much of this book is about over coming what stands in your way. Have you picked up on the reality of what is left undone and ignored becomes what will fight you from possessing your blessing.

There is so many sympathetic characters in these events and it sounds so cruel to kill everyone and everything but sometimes that’s what it takes.

It’s not touchy feely but we can’t hide from the hard things of scripture because we don’t like it. We have to face the hard and difficult lessons of the Bible to find the best way to our best lives.

When I look at these battles I am reminded that there are situations and circumstances that we must learn to face and purge from our lives.

Yes, Learning to Live with them would be easier and more convenient but somethings and circumstances you are not called to learn to live with. You are called to over come to the point that there is no life left in the problem so it can’t come back to haunt you in the future.

When we look at the fact that Israel wasn’t called into slavery but lingered too long in Egypt, not in their promise land, they became slaves to their comfort and complacency.

Everyone in the promise land that wasn’t descendants of Abraham or didn’t make peace with Israel, were the results of the land being unprotected and undeveloped by Israel.

What happens when you abandon God’s will for your life? Something else takes root.

Something or someone else claims for themselves what God wanted for you.

If God wanted Joy for you but you don’t develop that Joy for yourself, someone else will live the life you should be living because you surrendered it to them.

The people of Israel had neglected the promise land for so long they had to now fight for what they were promised.

They had to do the ugly work to over come and to claim for themselves the things God had already promised for them.

This is true for our lives as well. If you or I don’t stay where God has lead us and neglect the calling for our lives and our families we will end up slaves to our behaviors. What should be sacred for our lives will become just an impulse but that impulse will cost us intimacy with our people and ourselves.

What we are witnessing in the fight for the nation of Israel isn’t just a surface battle where someone is invading and someone is being invaded. That’s the surface view and it’s lazy.

We are seeing what its means to be redeemed and what it takes to over come areas of neglect that we leave unattended throughout our lives.

When people come to work through issues in their lives the 1st and 4th meeting are always the hardest. Why?

Because you can always tell that they thought it would be easier to fix something they ignored for 20 years. Very few people have the courage to commit to the battle they have to go through to grow through and become who God is making them too be.

I always ask people to embrace the boredom not because I am asking them to compromise themselves, I am asking them to commit to the hard work of changing and rediscovering their joy in their lives and relationships. There will be and always is battles that will need to be addressed as you confront changing the nation of your heart and habits of your life.

There is always a habit that seems impossible to fix or redeem, so you have to approach it differently and learn new skill sets to face it. It will always require you to fight to overcome.

This is the big lesson of today.

You have to fight to overcome. There is no short cut and there is no victory without obeying God through the fight.

That’s right, God will guide you to fight and too over come. .

Sometimes that takes years.

If you have let somethings go and fall to the ground because you don’t want to face it, chances are what you dropped is a seed that will take root and you’ll have to fight your own fear because it has grown to the size of a mountain.

There will be a battle and you’ll have to do the ugly work. You’ll have to say what things really are to over come and replace the way you live and think to have the blessings you desire but now have to fight to remove what stands in your way.

Always deal with problems when they are small and if you can, when they are an impulse trying to happen before they happen.

Pray as you go. When the impulse is happening, ask God what He wants in that situation, then do what he says.

It’s when we ignore it and allow it to appeal to our vanity we get sucked in again and again.

It’s about this point someone says to me, “Jason I don’t want to have to micro manage my life.” You better. If you are not in control someone or something else will be. Someone else being in control does not relinquish you from the responsibility of your life. If we let our lives live in a reckless way spiritually and physically we can be sure we are going to crash and burn, repeatedly, if we don’t stop playing games.

We get stalled in our lives as if our tires are stuck in the mud.

Take your foot off the Gas and find a way to get traction. Get help. Step outside and look at your problem differently. Don’t be afraid to ask how you got there. Don’t be afraid to decide to never go there again.

Do you know why God said destroy their horses and chariots?

I have to be honest here, I would have a difficult time with this order from God. I love me some horses.

It’s about the context here.

These are weapons that were going to be used against Israel again if they didn’t destroy them.

You don’t leave weapons on the battlefield. Why? Because they become weapons used against you.

In Vietnam we were leaving LAW ( a single use shoulder fired tank / bunker buster of the era.) Soldiers were using them and throwing them away after being used. The Viet Cong would pick them up and started using them for their mortar tubes. They became very effective.

God didn’t want their enemy to still have these weapons and I assume God didn’t want them to become dependent on anything other than God’s leadership. Here’s the deal, early on Israel had to depend on God so that they would have woven into their DNA as a nation, dependence on God & allegiance Him alone.

This Fidelity from the beginning would protect Israel from its enemies and themselves.

Later (spoiler alert) when Israel loses their way and start worshiping false gods they would lose that protection by choice. Let me just go ahead and say it here, so will we as believers suffer the same consequences if we ever turn our eyes away from God. We will still be Forgiven but we can lose His protection if we are not living right.

Consequences Come Because of our Choices.

So what Choices are you going to make?

What are the some of the battles you have to face?

How can you disarm some of those opposing you of their weapons?

Here are 5 Simple Things to do to Make Better Choices, Fight your Battles and Disarm your problems.

USE the 10 Commandments. Sometimes you have prayed and still need an answer. You have fasted and still need an answer. You are saved by grace and listen for the Holy Spirit but still need an answer. The 10 Commandments will help the believer practice and get insight into whats they should do next. If your choices cause you to violate any of the commandments then they are the wrong choices. If your choice is to place anything or anyone before God, then it’s idolatry and breaks the 1st. Commandment. Let’s read them together. Check out Exodus 20

Exodus 20 (NLT)

Then God gave the people all these instructions:

“I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.

“You must not have any other god but me.

“You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

“You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.

“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

“Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

“You must not murder.

“You must not commit adultery.

“You must not steal.

“You must not testify falsely against your neighbor.

“You must not covet your neighbor’s house. You must not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.”

You see the 10 commandments cover a lot and in them are a great tool.

Yes we are covered by grace but we must live a life that honors God and in the absences of direct instructions given by God we must learn to use the tools God has already given us.

The O.T. isn’t a dead part of scripture for us it’s just as living as the N.T. We must use wisdom in the absence of explanation in the N.T.

Learning to think from the place of the 10 commandments and we will understand God’s Grace better. None of us will nail the 10 Commandments all the time but we can use them as a guide to ask ourselves if our next action will offend God. Does your boss ask you to do something that would violate any of the 10? Does your spouse try to replace God? would your next action lead to someone’s harm or death? you see How the 10 Commandments help?

2. Get rid of the weapons used against you from your life. If it’s liquor then get rid of it. If its porn, then get rid of your access to it. If it’s anger, then deal with what is making you angry. Search for an underlying medical condition. Always check your thyroid. That little organ can mess up your entire life if you don’t keep an eye on it.

The point is deal with what is the issue so the issue doesn’t destroy you.

3. Pray and meditate on God’s love for you. Sometimes we supplement praying for our food or before we go to bed for prayer. Prayer is more than that. It’s about staying alert in the moments of decision making and seeking God’s guidance in the middle of our battles.

Both help us to create the reflex of trusting and reaching to God. When you can get quiet and just sit and listen for God for 10 mins. Breath deeply and slowly. Keeping your thoughts centered on God and Christ.

4. Confess to a trusted friend and see if there is anything they can help you be accountable with. Then do it. Make sure they are a believer.

5. Repent for your part in your struggles. You must be honest with yourself. When you have ignored the hard work through out your life or even if you didn’t know what was going on, you still need to own your part in it all. Now that you know, you need to own it

No more excuses or brushing off doing the Ugly Work.

Growth takes uprooting what should have never been planted.

God will help us all with it we have to embrace the process. I know people don’t always like that word, process, but it is a process to become better than we are.

It starts with

YES!