But God, It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time!

 

Joshua 9:14-15(NKJV)

14Then the men of Israel took some of their provisions; but they did not ask counsel of the Lord. 

15So Joshua made peace with them, and made a covenant with them to let them live; and the rulers of the congregation swore to them.

You know it is an interesting thing turning your life over to Jesus.  It's a pretty unnatural thing to do.  It goes against the grain for most of us.  We like being in control.  We like making decisions and directing our lives.  It's hard to give that up.

And yet the example above is a great example of what can happen when we don't run things by God.  In the story above you had a group of people who came to the Israelites with a sob story of how they had traveled a long way and they wanted to make a treaty.

To the Israelites the story sounded plausible so they said "OK let's make a treaty".  The Israelites went so far as to give this people food and clothing.  Well as it turns out this group of people lied.  They weren't from a long ways away.  They were from right next door. 

Where did the Israelites go wrong?  They didn't run it by God before acting.  Do you recall God ever telling them to make treaties with anyone when they took over the land flowing with mild and honey?  No.  What did God tell them to do?  Kill every man woman and child. 

So by not checking with God first, even though their intentions were good, they managed to act against God's instructions.

How often does that happen to us?  What is usually the cause?  That's right, not running it by God.  We don't mean to go astray.  We have all the right intentions.  We just didn't check with God first to make sure we were on the right track.

So as we go forward let's try to remember to actually go to God and run things by Him before we act instead of always going to Him afterwards and having to ask forgiveness because we screwed up again!