Another week somewhat like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride but in a good way.
- My family and I went up to see Garren after church today and it was a time of celebration and praise! Garren keeps his eyes open for long periods of time now and responds to requests to move his foot or fingers! The finger was the first time he’s moved it—yet! He looks great! His color is back and there’s a real sense of peace in the room and among the Janes now. The waiting is far from over, but Garren is making progress. We were all praising God at the hospital today! It was good day. Thank you, God.
- We kicked off our family series, “My House” today. It’s a subject near and dear to my heart because, well, I’ve got one—a family—and I want all of us to be God chasers. My deepest prayer has already been answered—my kids have both trusted Christ as Savior and Lord and each is learning to follow Him from the heart. But the state of the family in these days is not so good. I don’t like to be all doom and gloom, but families are coming apart everywhere we look—That’s reality—And it won’t do us much good to tell ourselves any different. In order to see God help our own families we need to cry out for help—Why would we do that if we thought families were just fine? Thank God there’s good news though. As we learned today, the family was God’s idea. He’s pro family and He wants yours to make it! Just His way rather than yours. More on that next week.
- Today I shared a funny story about my son (aka: “Shoeless Joe,” or “Huck Finn”) with his permission. He laughed but my daughter was upset about the pink flip flops with flowers—“I can’t believe you said I had pink flip flops with flowers! They were orange! I would never wear pink flip flops with flowers!” Who knew?
- Our text today was Joshua 24—key verse, 15b, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Seems Joshua didn’t have the public speaking fears that His predecessor, Moses did. His retirement speech really fired up the people. Here is their response:
“16Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods, 17for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. 18And the LORD drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God.”
Only problem was, it was all “idle” talk. Or, perhaps more accurately, “idol” talk—and Joshua knew it! He doesn’t get to excited about their response…
“ 19But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is(AM) a holy God. He is(AN) a jealous God;(AO) he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. 20(AP) If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then(AQ) he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.”
Why did Josh react this way?
Because he knew what was waiting for most Jews once they returned to their tents or houses—idols. That’s right, most of them were simply paying lip service to God—they actually had no intention of forsaking their foreign gods. So Joshua simply speaks from himself and his family—“As for me and my house—we will serve the Lord…PERIOD!”
Joshua was a God Chaser—not just talk, but action to back it up.
Yes, he could talk quite a game…
But he also walked the walk!