Choose today
“If it seems evil to you to serve Yahweh, choose this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.””Joshua 24:15 · WEB
At the end of his life Joshua gathers the tribes and tells the story back to them — from Abraham, through Egypt, through the sea, to the land they are now farming. Then he does something a leader rarely does: he makes it hard to say yes. If serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, choose today whom you will serve — the gods your ancestors served, or the gods of this land. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. The crowd shouts that of course they will serve God. Joshua tells them flatly that they cannot, not the way they are going about it, and makes them say it twice more before he will write it down. Faith that has never been offered a real alternative has never actually been chosen.