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
