“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
The last sentence of this passage hangs
on the wall next to the door, directly across the room from where I’m sitting. I
don’t look at it as much as I should. If you’re like me, and like the Jews,
you’re likely to say, “Yes! As for me and my house, we will also serve the
Lord.” And then we and the Jews will and did go along through our day, doing
what we want to, whether God likes the idea or not.
That’s the reason the sign is on my
wall. It’s not just a case of choosing this day whom we will serve, but
of choosing this minute or this second. And then the next second, and the one
after that.
And we aren’t tempted to serve the gods
beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, at least not by the names
they were given back then. Instead, we worship ourselves, money, power,
science, nature the universe, and the world. Yesterday, I inadvertently raised
a topic of a particular sin with a couple of Christian friends. One answered that
– “Contrary to what the Bible says…” and both of them gave explanations that had
no reference to Scripture. And I had to choose between their rationale or Scripture.
Having made that decision (it wasn’t
hard,) I have another decision to make. How should I treat these friends? I can’t
agree with them, but I can and should love them. That one isn’t too hard to
figure out, but what do we do abot that book or TV show we know we shouldn’t
read or watch? Or that snack we know we shouldn’t eat? Or the cute little dress
that we know we shouldn’t wear, but it’s “cute”? What do we do when we’re advised
to “follow the science” or “get woke”?
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