Joshua: Obedience Leads to Victory

What do these three pictures have in common? I’ll help you out a bit and label them. Picture (a) is a cancer cell; (b) is an ancient army going into battle; and (c) is a “Where’s Waldo?” puzzle.

Guesses, anyone? No worries, we’ll come back to it. First, let’s do a little heart diagnostic.

The Issue: You feel defeated. You are trying to be close to God, but it seems impossible. At one point, you could clearly hear His voice and you are sure of what He told you then, but now you are frustrated and confused.

Time for a story (Josh. 6-7).

The year is somewhere between 1406 and 1220 B.C. You’re a soldier in the gigantic army of Israel, under the leadership of this fierce warrior named Joshua, and are protected by the power of a supreme and all-powerful God. Every city around you for miles is terrified of you and your God. One day Joshua tells you that you’re going to conquer an ancient and well-fortified city called Jericho, with it’s high walls and brave men, by walking around it seven times and blowing trumpets. Maybe you think this is crazy, but you obey Joshua (who is obeying his Lord) and walk. On the seventh day as the horns sound, the walls of this city miraculously come crashing down, and you and your fellow soldiers rush in to kill everyone and take the city captive. Victory complete!

At the end of the day, the army praises the Lord for giving it the city. God commands Joshua, who in turn commands you, not to take any of the spoil from the city, but to dedicate the things of worth to His temple. Since you’ve just come out of battle victorious and are celebrating, this doesn’t seem like a hard command to follow.

The next battle is against a smaller city, this one called Ai. Joshua leads only a few of you into combat, but instead of taking an easy win, you are defeated and run home with your tail between your legs. Joshua inquires of God what happened, and the Lord points out that one of you has disobeyed His command, and had stolen something from the riches of Jericho. Although it was just one man (named Achin) out of the ENTIRE population of Israel, they would not be right before the Lord until this thing was taken care of.

The Application:

Okay, back to the pictures.

First, we can apply them to the story. Picture (b) is the army of Israel— that one’s kind of a given. Picture (c) is looking for the disobedience (difficult to spot). And picture (a), the cancer cell, is the outcome: one little cell, one little sin, is what spreads to cause the most damage after the victory.

Now we put the pictures and the story together and apply it to the real issue at hand.

Think back to the last time you were “on the mountaintop” with God. Maybe it was at a summer camp or a conference, maybe it was at youth group one night, or maybe it was just praying in your room. Whenever it was, you were close to the Lord— you heard His voice, you knew His promises, and you were secure in the knowledge that He would give you victory in some area of your life (picture (b)). With that, though, came a command: dedicate what is holy to Me. Obey My commands and follow Me, and I will give you the victory.

It’s so easy to jump up and say, Yes, I will obey You and Your commands! We have just tasted His goodness and are on a spiritual high. What we don’t realize is that this is when we are the most vulnerable to attack— it may not be obvious, but it comes in the test of the little things. All it took to defeat Israel was the disobedience of one man (Achin) out of the multitudes. As a result, they couldn’t even defeat smaller obstacles because they weren’t righteous before God. What was required of Israel is also required of us: we must search ourselves and find the area in which we have sinned or have refused to submit, hidden as it might be (picture (c)). It only takes one small cell to multiply into something uncontrollable and life threatening, and the only thing to do is to put it under submission and cut it out (picture (a)).

The Lord is just, and He is forgiving, and His promises are unchanging. But He is molding us into sons and daughters through obedience in every area of our lives, no matter how great or small they may seem to us, and the test of it is very often after the victory. In the story of Israel, Joshua and the community took Achin out and stoned him to death. It is just as important to put to death the area of disobedience in within us!

After Israel had repented, the Lord gave them victory at Ai. Obedience to God in the little things leads to a right relationship with Him, and the ultimate victory.

By: K
Underground Grad

Just Thinking Out Loud...

1. You shall have no other gods before Me.(T.V, Facebook, American Idol, Career, Family, and friends)
2. You shall not make unto thee any graven image. (Tattoos, Trophies, and Degrees)
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain. (Self Explanatory)
4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. (Where did this go?)
5. Honor your father and your mother. (A thing of the past; fathers are missing in the home.)
6. You shall not murder. (Even children do it now)
7. You shall not commit adultery. (Divorce is on the rise)
8. You shall not steal. (Even the Government is doing it)
9. You shall not bear false witness. (Everyday on every news channel)
10. You shall not covet. (MTV Cribs, Magazines, Movies & Neighbors)

•Side note: America was started by believer's who wanted to be a "city on the hill" for Jesus. Yet, this is what we have become. I was at a friends house last week and from the other room I heard the news say "As America chooses its next idol, we will give you up to date coverage". That phrasing caught me by surprise. It's not just that show alone but our culture in general. However, the name of American Idol couldn't be any more offensive... Could it?

Another name could be "America Breaks the 1st & 10th Commandment" Airs on Wednesday Nights @ 8pm. You don't want to miss it!

P.S. I am Proud of Scotty McCreery for winning and giving God the glory.


Just Thinking out loud...

Youth Leader Summit Notes:

Recently I attended a youth leader summit in Lima, NY with a good friend of mine. I wanted to share a few notes with you that I took while there. The following notes are from my first night. Jeanne Mayo was the speaker:

In the Crucible

Crucible: container for melting something. 2) bottom of furnace. 3) testing circumstances. 4) ordeal

•What is the crucible in your life?
•God is not punishing you, He’s educating you. It’s not punishment; it’s training.
•Ask Him not to take you out of the crucible but enlarge your pain capacity.
• A true leader will grow through the crucible.

What are the traits of a crucible?
•Crucibles make you ask the hard questions. I.e., Am I really called to do this? Did God really give me this vision?
•Crucibles are inevitable where people play for high stakes. Heaven & Hell!
•Crucibles are conquered by those who think and act differently when times call for it. (will do what needs to be done)
•Crucibles can come by failure or cause failure.
•Crucibles are a turning point. You are different than you were before the crucible...

The tipping point is the awareness of knowing that you are affecting peoples lives by how you come out of a crucible. (Made me think of the Chase family during Sam’s battle)


Be diligent with the church you have and not the one you want. Jesus died for one person at a time. One is just as valuable as 1000.

•Take charge of the narrative of the story. The choice is always yours. You are the story teller.

•A crisis always introduces a person to themselves.

•If the crucible causes anger to come out, don’t blame the person who caused the crucible...the anger was always there, the crucible just brought it out.

• Leaders often find their voice in the crucible. They face the obvious risk, and choose to be optimistic.

• Sometimes God removes our dreams to give us our destiny.

•Greatness often comes at the intersection of pain & passion.

Andrew Murray

"The great bane of all our converse with Divine things is superficiality. When we read anything and understand it somewhat, we think that this is enough. No: we must give time, that it may make an impression and wield its own influence upon us. Read every portion the first time with consideration, to understand the good that is in it, and then see if you receive benefit from the thoughts that are there expressed"-Andrew Murray

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!

Moment-by-Moment

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

The Bible says that we are new creations— our old life of sin has died, and His new life has become manifested in ours. This means that we are no longer creatures of sin, but of purity and holiness. So if we now have Christ and all of His power dwelling in us, and if our spirits have been merged with the Holy Spirit, why is it that we continue to fall so short, and often return to old failures and habits? If we have been raised to walk in the likeness of His resurrection, why is holiness such a hard concept for us to grasp, much less live out?

“I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyways.” Romans 7:19

I used to get very frustrated with this concept, especially as I personally battled against the same temptations. I would do something wrong, apologize to God, do well for a little while, and then do the same wrong thing all over again. I couldn’t get away from the past, and the future looked as though it wouldn’t be any different. Even though I would pray and ask God to deliver me from my failures, I wasn’t really changing. Why? I wasn’t abiding in Him moment-by-moment; in the words of a Hispanic, this concept was (and is) the big enchilada.

Yes, we have been made new and we have a new nature. But we also are given a choice to live in that new nature every second, every moment, of every day. We can either choose to let Christ’s life flow through us, or we can cut off the flow of that life and choose to go back and pick up the old, dead sins that have been crucified in the hopes that they will do what they once did for us. It’s like going back and trying on clothes that you’ve outgrown— they’re not going to fit right, they’re going to be incredibly uncomfortable, and they’re going to look downright hideous on you. The things that once gave us some momentary pleasure or relief will never work now that we share a life with Jesus, because we’re not who we once were. We are now in Christ’s image, and with every choice and action and emotion we must allow Him to be in control and open our lives to His power. When we don’t do this, it’s like we’ve gotten short-term amnesia, and we forget who we are (sons and daughters of the King) and try to find power in either our old, sinful habits or ourselves. If you saw a prince rummaging through a garbage can, does that make him any less a prince? No. He may be acting incredibly foolish, but he’s still a prince. The question is not whether or not we are new creations, or whether or not we are really saved, or whether or not Christ is powerful enough to sanctify us and break our old addictions— the question is whether or not we are abiding in His life moment-by-moment. The past does not keep us in bondage and the future has no authority to intimidate us, if we can only grasp the concept of allowing Jesus’ life to flow through us continuously. And if you stop the flow in one minute, don’t give up and be discouraged! You have the very next moment to open the floodgates again.
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” John 15:4

The truth is, though we are made new, we will continue to fall short of His glory for as long as we are alive on this earth. But by choosing to be sanctified in each moment of our lives, we are saying to God that He is welcome to use us as He pleases, and we become vessels through which His work can be accomplished and His power can be shown. It is then that we truly begin living as Christ did, and the old things fall away and we see them as the worthless things that they are in comparison to His glory. As we abide in Him, we show that we are, indeed, new creations, and we will live knowing the fullness of His true power.

-Kristina (Underground Grad)

Why Don’t You Do Something? (Revelations from the book of James)

“So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.” (James 2:24)

I have often wondered what it would be like to have the answers to everything. To know exactly how to have the perfect relationship with God, with my friends, with my family— what would it take? Because the standard is perfection, and we are called to be pure and holy, just like our righteous God. For a long time, I thought that having enough faith was always the right answer, and it would be enough to right any situation; if I believed hard enough, and “trusted” God enough, my own desires would be fulfilled and I would be able to get through anything. All I needed was a little bit of faith, right? And plus, wouldn’t God be pleased with me if I just trusted Him to make everything perfect?

While this seemed good in theory, it proved to be completely untrue. God does not want us to idly sit twiddling our thumbs while our mouths do all of the work. We cry out to Him when things don’t go our way, and yet we sit in the puddle of our own self-despair and wait for Him to clean up our mess. What sort of character does this produce? We demand answers from Him, and explanations for all of our circumstances, and say, “I believe in You! I believe You can fix this!”

Well, great! You believe! “Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.” (James 2:19b)

The standard, like I said, is perfection. The way this is achieved is not through the stagnation of our faith, but through it’s active perseverance, as produced by all sorts of trial and hardship. “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

Endurance. As far as I’m concerned, that comes from the verb “endure”, which implicitly implies action. Actively praying, actively working, actively seeking, and actively living. The circumstances in which you find yourself will not change through simply “having enough faith”. I’m not saying that faith in and of itself can’t move mountains, because of course, it can. Matthew 17:20, “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”

However, we are called to pair works and faith together, and through trusting God and carrying out His will, we will find our circumstances changing. So, what do we do, then?

“But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.” James 1:22

-Kristina (Underground Grad)

Q & A with Pastor Francis Chan...

Below, Pastor Francis Chan (Cornerstone, CA) answers a few questions about content in his book "Crazy Love" and his overall approach to ministry. Caution! He tells it like it is:)



Q: In one chapter you state, “dare to imagine what it would mean for you to take the words of Jesus seriously.” What does this mean? Why do you think so many Christians would turn down this dare?

A: We’ve conditioned ourselves to hear messages without responding. Sermons have become Christian entertainment. We go to church to hear a well-developed sermon and a convicting thought. We’ve trained ourselves to believe that if were convicted, our job is done. If you’re just hearing the Word and not actually doing something with it, you’re deceiving yourself.
I remember preaching on Luke 6 and I brought up the passage that says: “do good to those who hate you.” I told the congregation to think of someone that hated them, and I asked: Are you willing to go do something good for them? Will you do that? Yes or no? I said, tell God right now, “No I will not do that.” We’re not willing to make that statement because we don’t want to say that to God, but we’re doing that everyday.
We don’t think it through because we’ve developed a habit of listening to the Word of God and not obeying it. If we take Scripture literally and if we actually apply it, we won’t have what our flesh desires, so we walk away sad or we run to the church where no one else is doing it, but they seem okay with that.

Q: You talk about being a lukewarm Christian. You make a bold statement that “churchgoers who are ‘lukewarm’ are not Christians...We will not see them in heaven.” How do you explain this? How does grace play into this statement?

A: I explain it through the passage of Revelation 3 and look at the passage objectively. God says that the lukewarm will be spit out of His mouth, and that is drastically different than God embracing you and welcoming you into heaven. The lukewarm still need to be saved. How can we say a lukewarm Christian is saved?
Salvation has nothing to do with my performance. If I’m truly saved than my actions are going to show. All through the New Testament a person’s faith is shown through his actions. New Testament teachings are clear that someone who loves God and doesn’t obey God is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
It’s not popular to question someone’s actions and salvation, and Scripture tells us to test ourselves and see if we’re really in the faith. I believe 100% in grace, that I did nothing, and I’m completely saved by the cross. By the grace of God we believe and are saved. If someone has the Holy Spirit in them, there will be fruit and there will not be a lukewarm life.

Q: How does the American dream play into a lukewarm faith?

A: It’s interesting when we talk about the American dream. In Luke 12, Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool. There’s this guy who is rich and has an abundance of crops. He builds bigger barns so that he can store it up. He says, “I have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.” Basically, he’ll retire and enjoy himself, the American dream. God says, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.”
We shouldn’t worry about our lives, what we’ll eat, buy, or wear. God says the American dream is absolute foolishness. It’s exactly what Christians are doing and defending. God could take your life at any time. Don’t conform to the patterns of this world.

Q: Do you think God calls you to live a radical, crazy life?

A: It’s not that this lifestyle should be crazy to us. It should be the only thing that makes sense. Giving up everything and sacrificing everything we can for the afterlife is logical. Crazy is living a safe life and storing up things while trying to enjoy our time on earth, knowing that any millisecond God could take your life. To me that is crazy, and that is radical. The crazy ones are the ones that live life like there is no God. To me that is insanity.

Q: So how does one begin to love God more? To love him radically?

A: The fact is, I need God to help me love God. And if I need His help to love Him, a perfect being, I definitely need His help to love other, fault-filled humans. Something mysterious, even supernatural must happen in order for genuine love for God to grow in our hearts. The Holy Spirit has to move in our lives.
It is a remarkable cycle: Our prayers for more love result in love, which naturally causes us to pray more, which results in more love.