A Yielded Heart

 DEVOTION

JOSHUA

A YIELDED HEART

Josh 24:16-28

16 Then the people answered, "Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! 17 It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. 18 And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God." 19 Joshua said to the people, "You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. 20 If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you." 21 But the people said to Joshua, "No! We will serve the LORD." 22 Then Joshua said, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD." "Yes, we are witnesses," they replied. 23 "Now then," said Joshua, "throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel." 24 And the people said to Joshua, "We will serve the LORD our God and obey him." 25 On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he drew up for them decrees and laws. 26 And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the LORD. 27 "See!" he said to all the people. "This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God." 28 Then Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance.

NIV

Joshua had testified, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” and he had given the people the opportunity to choose for themselves. They responded they would serve the LORD. Yet, Joshua is not content with their answer because they still had the other gods among their possessions and warned them, but they insisted they would serve the LORD. They must throw away the foreign gods among them and yield their hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel. Here is where we learn our lesson for life as a believer. Because we confess being a believer in Jesus Christ, or that we are a follower of Jesus Christ, or that we are born again, we need to yield our hearts to our Lord. The key here is to yield our hearts. The Hebrew word, the English transliteration is spelled Natah, which means to stretch out, or to extend, to spread out, to pitch. It is also used to incline, bend, or bow. All of these words carry basically the same thing, meaning we are to yield, give over,  to stretch out our hearts toward and to our Lord. This brings up that age-old question, of whether we still have some, maybe just one, but some foreign gods among our lives, or our possessions. We need to do some self-examination, and some soul searching to determine if our hearts might be divided, even if just a little, by trying to serve the Lord, spreading out our hearts before Him, while keeping a portion of our hearts bent toward something else. We already consider the consequences of having a divided heart, and now we can fully understand the concept of yielding our hearts. There can be nothing else in our lives that can stand in the way of stretching out our hearts to our Lord, especially ourselves, our desires, or wants, either things or our time. Sometimes, we say that we just want some alone time, and that is alright as long while we are doing our alone time thing, we are still focused on extending our hearts to our Lord. It’s alright to invest some time doing our self-interests, as long as they are not infringing on or replacing the inclination or bend of our hearts toward Jesus.  Joshua set up a large stone as a witness against them, but we have the Holy Spirit within us as a witness to the presence of the Lord in our hearts. He also serves as this witness, as we are marked with the Holy Spirit who is a deposit, a seal, a guarantee of our inheritance, just as Johsua set up that stone, marking the place, a seal, between them and God. Knowing we are marked with the Spirit, that he dwells within us, we cannot ever bend or stretch out our hearts to anything other than the Lord, all the time, every time, and everywhere, and during anything we are doing. Let us yield our hearts to the Lord.