A Very Careful Love

I've been studying and meditating on the book of Joshua for a few months now. I love the book of Joshua. It's a book of struggle, war, conflict, defeat and victory. Joshua was the second person to lead the Jewish people in their early history. He spent the early part of his life training under Moses and took over for him when the Israelites entered the land of Canaan. Joshua's charisma and skill as a leader are evident from the success of the Jews during his lifetime, and their rapid decline following his death. Indeed, not until Samuel's reign hundreds of years later do the Israelites find a comparable leader. Joshua is a man's man and he is an example of courageous leading and listening to the voice of God.

As I was reading in Joshua 23 this morning, I couldn't help but notice the vibrant language that this Hebrew author penned in verse 11 "So be very careful to love the Lord your God." How we need to carefully love the Lord. So easily we can become sloppy, careless or even apathetic in our love towards him. "So" is a conjunction, joining this thought to the previous textual verses. Verses 9-10 are a reminder that the Lord has fought for them and he has fulfilled his promises. Joshua reminds the Israelites "So" or "therefore" because of this, carefully love God. An exegetical study on this verse was intriguing:

Be careful: take heed, watch, guard, protect, retain
Very: exceedingly, abundant, with force, power, might
Love: to breathe after

We are to literally be very careful how we love and what we love. The love that he's talking about is a love that is like a passionate lover, to breathe after someone in anticipation and exhilaration. I'm called to have that type of love for my Lord. With force, power and might I'm to fight for my love towards God, not allowing anything to deter me from this pathway of love.

 Stumbling Blocks

There are often stumbling blocks that are placed in this pathway of love, stumbling blocks that we must address and have removed. Some of these are the consequences of sin, some of them are the attack of the enemy, while others are stumbling blocks that have been placed in our lives by the poor choices we've made.

Joshua 23:12 tells us that there is a progression on how our love wavers and becomes ultimately deterred from the almighty God.

1. But if you turn away - In a moment, our eyes can deflect off of the love path and glance to the left or to the right (v6). We can turn away from our first love or worse, we can literally look back at the world we've just left, like Lot's wife (Gen. 19:26). Turning away can be a momentary glance, a longing stare, an apathetic and complacent devotion or a defiant stance. There are many things that create a diversion in our lives from the Lord and onto something else.

2. and ally yourselves - The next step after a glance is we begin to set up a relationship with the world. We can befriend and associate ourselves with things other than God. Sometimes we rationalize this relationship and suggest that it's not that we've left the Lord, but that we are pursuing an opportunity that has come across our path. We then begin to love this opportunity more than the one from whom the opportunity has originated (God). Our allegiance becomes horizontal rather than vertical in nature.

3. and if you intermarry - The glance that turned into an allegiance has now become a marriage vow. To love the world and to have a loving relationship with the godless is to deny the Lord and to re-direct our first love to the temporal trash. We can breathe after our God or we can breathe after this world. The apostle John tells us that if we "love the world, the love of the Father is not in [us]" (John 2:15). If the love of the Father is not in us, we lose all of the power, vitality and wisdom that he affords. We lose our lifeline and the source of our strength. We will lose his hedge of protection "then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you." (Joshua 23:13a). There are things in our lives that we can passionately love more than Him (recreation, friends, family-focus, child-focus etc). How we spend our time, what we spend our money on and what excites us are pretty good indicators of our heart's desire.

4. and associate with them - This term associate is a term that means a business partnership and is yet another aspect of a romance with the world. The Lord tells us to not even have a business relationship or partnership with someone who is apart from Him. He gives us these instructions to preserve us, keep us and save us. The world loves money. The world loves power. The world loves self. But we have a different set of values and love. Our pathway is different from the world. We have an eternal and vertical vision, the world has a temporary and horizontal vision. We can easily love these business partnerships (money and career etc) much more than we love Him.

Canaan - the Promised Land

To deny our relationship with Him and to turn our love, vision, allegiance and partnership to the world will cost us everything. "[These nations] will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you." (23:13b) Our God has promised us a good land! He is fulfilling his promises. He is leading us to the promised land! I don't want to forfeit all that the Lord is doing in my life and has promised to do. This obviously doesn't preclude me from loving and serving others, but I do want to "be very careful to love the Lord [my] God" and nothing else of this world.