Sun.’s Devo - Memorials

Read: Joshua 3:1-4:24; Luke 14:7-35; Psalm 80:1-19; Proverbs 12:27-28 The Israelites camped in Acacia Grove which was a grove of acacia trees. Acacia wood is what all the furniture was made of for the Tabernacle. How appropriate would it be for God to have them find this grove right before crossing into their land to set up house. This wood was also one of the gifts that you could bring to the Lord for a freewill offering. I bet the women had their men cut them down some of these trees and had dreams of what they wanted built when they got to their permanent home. This grove was right by the Jordan which they had to cross to get to Canaan. Joshua told the people to watch the priests with the ark of the Covenant and when it moved out, they were to follow a half mile behind. He told the priests to lift up the Ark and march with him. He told them that that day they would know that the living God was among them. The priest would go first and as soon as their feet hit the water it would dry up. They would drive out all the enemies in the land. The people followed just as Joshua had commanded and it happened just as he had said. When the priests feet touched the water it was stopped upstream which was a great distance from the priests. They took the ark to the center of the Jordan and stopped The people crossed a distance away from the Ark. When all the people had crossed, Joshua commanded the leader of each tribe to take a rock from where the priests were standing in the middle of the Jordan and bring it to where the people were and place it in a heap. This heap would stand as a memorial of what God did for them that day. Joshua set up another pile of twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan at the place where the priests had stood to claim dominion over every spirit under the earth as defeated. The armed warriors from the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh who had promised to help everyone else take their land led the march to Jericho. That day, Joshua gained the respect that Moses had in the eyes of the people. The place where they had set the stones was called Gilgal which means “to roll like a wheel.” Joshua was making a statement to the people of the land that their God was more powerful. They would move over the land like a rolling stone and take the land. They had set up their stones as word of victory. They marked their territory. In Luke, Jesus was having dinner at one of the leading Pharisee’s house. It was the Sabbath and he had just healed the man at church. When he got to the house to eat he noticed that everyone was fighting to get the best seats near the head table. He spoke and told them that when you come to an important dinner, you should take the least place and then you will be honored if you get asked to move closer, but if you get the honored place and someone more honored comes you might be embarrassed if you are asked to give him your seat. In other words, let God promote you, not yourself. Then he turned to the host and told him the next time he had a dinner party he should ask the ones who couldn’t invite him back. His reward would be waiting for him in heaven. One of the men who heard Jesus say this proclaimed, “What a blessing it will be to attend a banquet in the Kingdom of God!” Jesus replied with a story about a man who prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When the banquets was ready, everyone he had invited had excuses of why they couldn’t come. So, the master told his servants to go to the highways and byways and invite the homeless and the destitute, the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame until his home was full of people. To follow after God you have to hate everything in comparison to how you love God. The bottom line is we have to die to ourselves and all we love and choose God. When we do that all things will be added but our core will be right. Jesus encourages us to first count the cost of following Him before we start out on this journey. Lord, we have counted the cost and we choose You above all. Remind us when we get off the mark and worry about things only You can change.