{"id":4411,"date":"2022-12-04T11:51:15","date_gmt":"2022-12-04T17:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4411"},"modified":"2022-12-04T11:51:15","modified_gmt":"2022-12-04T17:51:15","slug":"devotional-on-joshua-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-joshua-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Joshua"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-jfjCMIKV0PM\/XY0qKEEmNYI\/AAAAAAABBlo\/Go65SdSsQdQMFUfJMHu7EJL9jf4aHKUIQCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_2759.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1195\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Oregon 101 &#8211; along the southern coast<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nAchan lied and men died.<br \/>\nJoshua 7: Israel has sinned: they&#8217;ve broken the covenant I commanded them.<br \/>\nJericho\u2019s defeated and destroyed.  Now their attention\u2019s on a much smaller, less fortified place, Ai.  An armed force of 3000 is sent to do battle at Ai, more than enough to win an easy victory.  However, it doesn&#8217;t work that way.  The people of Ai rise up and rout the larger Israelite force.  How could that happen?  They not only have superior numbers, but God is on their side.  Right?  Wrong!  They go to Ai without God and are defeated there.  Dismayed by what&#8217;s happened on his watch Joshua goes to the Lord.  He\u2019s told that there\u2019s sin in the camp.  As long as there\u2019s sin there\u2019ll be no help from God.   You see, sin is always serious in the eyes of the Lord.  Beyond that, my sin impacts others in unexpected ways.  Achan thinks that God won&#8217;t notice and that his intentional disobedience of the Lord\u2019s command will have no consequences.  Instead, because of his sin, God withdraws his blessing and over 30 men die.  In our western culture, we like to think it\u2019s every man for himself.  Had an American written this story, Achan, and maybe family, would have died for his sin in tragic poetic justice.  Everyone else would have gone on with &#8220;business as usual.&#8221;  Here we see a different picture.  &#8220;Achan lied and men died.&#8221;  Is it possible that some churches struggle because there\u2019s hidden sin in the camp?   And why stop at the church?  What does this story say to me as an American?  A country where babies by the millions are aborted, where immorality is the accepted mode of behavior?  Am I really free to stand back from that and be dismayed, expecting the judgment of God to only fall on &#8220;them?&#8221;<br \/>\nTake Away: Our lives are interconnected, what I do impacts others, maybe many others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Achan lied and men died. Joshua 7: Israel has sinned: they&#8217;ve broken the covenant I commanded them. Jericho\u2019s defeated and destroyed. Now their attention\u2019s on a much smaller, less fortified place, Ai. An armed force of 3000 is sent to do battle at Ai, more than enough to win an easy victory. However, it doesn&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1509,7],"tags":[136,213,336,996],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4411"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14097,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411\/revisions\/14097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}