Choose

Read: Joshua 24:11-24

Choose today whom you will serve. . . . As for me and my family, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:15

IN WORD

It seems like a choice that should have been made long ago. In fact, it was, at least at times and in certain degrees. Israelites who had made it to the Promised Land had already pledged loyalty to God and His chosen leaders at key moments. They had expressed their intentions. Yet idols remained among them (Joshua 24:23). Like many of us, they had been following God while hanging on to a supporting cast of deities. But the supporting cast wasn’t very supporting, and in fact undermined their best intentions. We see that clearly as Scripture and history played out over the next few centuries; no one can truly serve multiple masters. One has to reign supreme.

That’s why Joshua called the people to an emphatic, decisive commitment. “Choose today whom you will serve.” God had called for this choice repeatedly, reminding His people that He was the one who had delivered them from captivity, defended them, protected them, provided for them, and made a covenant full of extravagant promises for them. But even at the end of the conquest, they needed to be called again to a choice. They needed to make a commitment that would stick.

IN DEED

So do we. We can’t criticize ancient Israelites very harshly because we are guilty of the same pattern. We make once-and-for-all commitments to God again and again and again, only to find ourselves clinging to worthless idols years later. We have to remember that we were born into this life to love and to serve. Period. We belong to another, and everything He has designed for us is good. Every choice we make in our own self-interest that contradicts His choices for us is really a self-inflicted wound. We have to plant a stake in the ground as a marker forever and choose—not just once, but every single day—whom we will serve. And whatever it takes, we have to ensure that this commitment never fades into the background of our lives.

ADDITIONAL READING: 1 Kings 18:20-39

Don’t touch Christianity unless you mean business. I promise you a miserable existence if you do.

HENRY DRUMMOND