To Present Oneself

 DEVOTION

JOSHUA

  TO PRESENT ONESELF

Josh 24:1-4

24:1 Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. 2 Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods. 3 But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the River and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, 4 and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.

NIV

We are going to see Joshua recount a quick lesson of the history of Israel which concludes with one of the more famous confessions of faith by Joshua, but first, we need to ponder this first verse. When Joshua assembled all the tribes and summed the elders, leaders, judges, and officials of Israel, the first thing they did was present themselves before God. Right off, we have our lesson for life. Of course, they were summoned, but then we can say that we too have been summoned, although not by a man, as they were, but by God, himself. When the Holy Spirit was upon us, convicting us of our sins and need for repentance, we responded to the summoning of the Lord, changed the way we thought from accepting the ways of the world and joining in with its ideologies, principles, and philosophies, to accepting the ways of the Lord. We were summoned by God to live in his kingdom, and the first thing we did was to present ourselves to Him. However, this needs to be done daily, as a way of life, living in the presence of the Lord. Sometimes, it is easy to get distracted by the world and when we do get drawn toward it we wonder if, in some sense, we are presenting ourselves to that distraction.  Still, what we know is that we always need to present ourselves before the Lord, seeking his face and his will for our lives. Joshua told the elders, judges, and officials what the LORD, the God of Israel said. That meant Joshua heard from the LORD. We too must hear from our Lord, so we can tell others about the great work he has done. Although, we can recount all the times the LORD summoned us to serve in one capacity or another. We can recount all the miracles he performed for us, showing his great love and power to us. He revealed himself time and time again, giving us his truth, his peace, and his provisions. How can we not present ourselves before him each and every day, or we should say, each moment of our lives. We know we should offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, as our spiritual act of worship. The Greek word translated as offering means to present, to bring into one’s presence, to show, to offer to yield, to dedicate. This is what the elders, judges, and officials of Israel did, and this is what we are required to do, to present, to bring ourselves into the Holy One’s presence, yielding ourselves to him, and to dedicate our lives to Him.