Amazing Things

 DEVOTION

JOSHUA

AMAZING THINGS

Josh 3:5-17

5 Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you." 6 Joshua said to the priests, "Take up the ark of the covenant and pass on ahead of the people." So they took it up and went ahead of them. 7 And the LORD said to Joshua, "Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. 8 Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: 'When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river.'" 9 Joshua said to the Israelites, "Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God. 10 This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. 11 See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. 12 Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. 13 And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the LORD-the Lord of all the earth — set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap." 14 So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. 15 Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, 16 the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 17 The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

NIV

We should break this up, but the contexts will not let us, for this whole narrative needs to be together, although there are several truths we want to explore in detail. First, Consecrating oneself requires setting oneself aside as holy or devoted to God. We are not sure how an entire million people were able to all become so self-devoted to God, with all the requirements of daily life they were experiencing. To regard oneself as holy, set apart for God, in the middle of packing everything up all their belongings, tents, meal utensils, and any extra things they may have had and still consecrate themselves, would have been difficult. But at the same time, they were also expecting the next day to see the Lord do amazing things among them. We wonder if we were to devote ourselves to the Lord as they were told to do, that we would see the Lord do amazing things among us. We would think that if we saw the Lord doing amazing things among us we would certainly find ourselves being more devoted, or consecrated than we may currently be. We ponder on how devoted to our Lord are we at the present time, and that maybe we are not as much as we such be and that is the reason we are not seeing the Lord doing amazing things among us. Although, we have seen the Lord do some amazing things in us and for us throughout our lives. Could we say the Lord stopped up waters for us to cross over on dry ground? We know he makes our path smooth, as the prophet Isaiah said, “The path of the righteous is level, O righteous one, you make the path of the righteous smooth”. We know we have crossed over from death to life, from darkness into the Light of Jesus, and that was as smooth of a transition as it could have ever been. However, we are still living and being transformed into His likeness, and that is an amazing thing. Yet, we must consecrate ourselves daily because we live in a culture that creates so many distractions. The Israelites surely must have had some distractions just trying to live in such a large community. But we have so many more things in this life that we can get caught up doing that we might lose sight of what devoted to the Lord looks like and so we are not seeing Him do amazing things among us. Let us consider rededicating our focus on Jesus, setting ourselves aside for His purpose in our lives, and it just might be possible we will see the Lord do amazing things among us.