The Last Day

 DEVOTION

JOSHUA

THE LAST DAY

Josh 24:29-33

29 After these things, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. 30 And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. 31 Israel served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the LORD had done for Israel. 32 And Joseph's bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became the inheritance of Joseph's descendants. 33 And Eleazar son of Aaron died and was buried at Gibeah, which had been allotted to his son Phinehas in the hill country of Ephraim.

NIV

Well, all those who led the people of Israel have died and are buried in their rightful places on the land of their inheritance. Although we will see more of what happens to Israel in the narrative of the Judges, we have come to the end of the story of Joshua. He did all that the LORD commanded and was faithful to the end. His last statement of faith testified to his life. “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD”. How can we not do the same all the days of our lives? How can we ever think of serving anything or anybody other than the LORD? Joshua lived to one hundred and ten, which is not as long as Moses who lived one hundred and twenty, but still, Joshua lived a good life, although it was filled with war for many years. Under the leadership of the LORD through the life of Joshua, Ireal drove out those foreign people from the land of their inheritance. Yet they still absorbed some of those foreign gods, religions, or Ideologies which Joshua told them they must throw them out, or they would be destroyed. We are still living and still susceptible to absorbing some foreign ideas into our thinking and thus believing in practices or ideologies of this world as just part of life. As long as we have breath within us, we must be consistent in what or who we put our trust in. Of course, we have chosen to trust in the Lord for our salvation, as Isreal did, most of the time, like when Moses was on the mountain of God too long and they wanted a golden calf to worship, or when they could not trust him at the Red Sea, and on and on the people who were chosen to be his people, to reveal himself through them to the whole world, could not trust him all the time, but rather put their trust elsewhere. We must be very careful all the days of our lives, that we only serve our Lord, not just for salvation, but for every aspect of our days we have left, until we reach the land of our inheritance, our heavenly home. Just as every man, it is appointed once for every man to die, and face judgment before God. Although we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts Jesus was raised from the dead, thus being saved, it would behoove us to live out the rest of our days serving our Lord and him alone, not getting distracted and taking on those foreign ideas, or live by the world’s way of thinking. We must stay true to our Lord in all areas of our lives, leaving all else behind and straining forward until our last day then we will reach the goal, our inheritance.