Joshua 9:3-10:43 ~ Luke 16:19-17:10 ~ Psalm 83:1-18 ~ Proverbs 13:4
Today is the 14th day of April. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. Today is Good Friday, the day that we commemorate and really sit with the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf. It’s a day of days. It’s a day that we use and observe as the anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus, the closest, deepest, truest friend we’ll ever have. So yes, we continue with the rhythm of the scriptures and allow them to wash over us and speak to us, but we also give ourselves to some contemplation today, some time to sit with what sin leads to and that is only death, and what it cost to free us from its bondage.
Prayer
So we thank you, Jesus. We thank you for such love that is beyond our comprehension. That you would come for us, that you would rescue us, that you would lay your life down on our behalf and that you have given us an unspeakable freedom, one in which we participate and one in which our actions show that we reject at times. So we sit with what this cost you to give to us this unspeakable, overarching, all-encompassing gift of our freedom from sin and all the repercussions of it. And we thank you and we worship you. Come, come into this time of reading from your word. Come into this day as we contemplate what it means to the world and to our own hearts. Come Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Okay, this has been a big week in the Bible because we crossed the Jordan and put our feet firmly in the promised land, so we’ll pick up that story where we left off yesterday in the book of Joshua, chapter 9, verse 3 through 10:43 and we’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week.
Commentary
Large swathes of land are conquered today in the promised land. The Gibeonites make this peace treaty with the Israelites under false pretenses and then when they are attacked, they are attacked by the most powerful kings of the region because the Gibeonites have allied themselves with Israel. Israel comes to their defense, which starts this large scale taking of this land because those kings were defeated, and then Joshua led his people to go and take that particular land of the enemies that had attacked them and were defeated. What we should notice is that the children of Israel didn’t just get to just march into the promised land and just settle in. They had to come into their promise and fight for it.
How this applies to our lives is similar. We get a promise, we get instructions, we begin to move in until it becomes work, until it becomes something that has to be contended for, until we have to fight for it and it is kind of at that point that normally we will turn back in confusion and flee and say, “But you promised!” kind of living under this false assumption that everything is supposed to be easy. But it is that which we have to fight for that actually has the most meaning and value to our lives and is held as the most precious. When we have to wait and contend and stay true and keep moving, these things, they instill a character and a trust in us that we can get no other way.
So we’re watching the children of Israel take the promised land and we have to understand that there is an enemy of our heart and soul. There is a mortal enemy of our children and our spouses. There is evil set against us in this world and if we want to regain those places in our hearts, we have to move forward with God on these things and we will prevail.
Prayer
On this day, this Good Friday, Jesus, everything that we’re talking about is only provided by your hand and through your sacrifice. So once again, all our hope is in you. So often we will declare that and it encourages us and it causes courage to well up within us, it en-courages us, but it has only ever been true. Our hope is in you because you are the only hope there is. So we start from gratitude because without you, without you there is no hope. So we place all of our hope in you, all of it, for everything. We sit with the fact that this cost you dearly. To give this hope to us cost you dearly. You love us so much that you left everything to come and suffered tremendously on our behalf. So we accept with gratitude the gift of life that you have offered us, the gift of a forever, an intimacy with you that is never-ending, and we invite your Holy Spirit to make the cost and the victory so evident in our lives today. You are the Savior. You are the King. You are the Master. You are the Friend. You are the Lover. You are The Way for us. You are The Truth for us. You are The Life for us. And it is a wonder and it is a gift that is beyond price, that is beyond cost, that is beyond economy. You have come to heal our broken hearts and so we trust you. All of our hope is in you and we invite you into these broken places because you were broken for us so that we don’t have to live that way anymore. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for your sacrifice on our behalf. We love you and we worship you. We worship you, Jesus. We give our hearts and we turn our hearts toward you and give them to you as an act of worship. And we pray these things in your mighty and victorious name. Amen.
SONG played on Good Friday’s DAB “Oh The Power” Kari Jobe http://apple.co/2onNa28