April 12

Joshua 5:1-7:15, Luke 15:1-32, Psalm 81:1-16, Proverbs 13:1 

Pray:  Dear Lord, please open our eyes as we read to see Your Word for us today. We ask the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds to new understanding. Lastly, Lord the scripture today tells us that when sin is in the camp there is a distance between the people of God and their Lord. We ask the Holy Spirit to point out any area of our lives where there is unrepented sin. Help us to realize that you are more than ready to forgive if we are willing to own our stuff and not allow our sin to get in our way of spiritual and emotional growth.

Read: Jericho has fallen. Scholars tell us that it was essential that Joshua and the Hebrew people take Jericho for they could not occupy the land with an ongoing threat like Jericho. However, the celebration was limited due to the sin which was in the camp of Israel. Among the Hebrew people someone had stolen items and hid them away for their own personal gain. God’s anger grew because this was against God’s command to the people. This act of stealing caused thousands of lives to be at stake and to die. The sin of the guilty parties was called out by God.

Edify: We all lose things. We misplace keys, we lose socks in the dryer, and finding the remote control is sometimes a major search in the home. But, these are things. How tragic it is to lose a friend, a family member, a spouse or a child to the sinful ways of the world. Here we find a younger son who is determined to make his way in the world and leave his father and older brother behind to satisfy his sexual and material appetites. The son finds himself lost in his own pride and narcissism when slopping the pigs. The Bible has a strong phrase when it says, “He came to himself” or “When he finally came to his senses”. The Holy Spirit’s role is to both convince us of God’s love and convict us of our sin. The younger son was convicted that he had given up his right to be a son and the best he could hope for was to be a servant of his father. He was shocked to find out that once he had confessed his sin to his father, his daddy restored him as his son. God always welcomes home repentant daughters and sons.

Practice: We don’t celebrate enough in the local church. We should swing from the chandeliers when people come to faith in Christ. God is celebrating the homecoming of his younger son. But, the older brother could not celebrate due to his pride. The older brother was drowning in “entitlement”. He said to his father, “I have been with you all these years and you have not given me even a goat to celebrate with my friends…” The father was clear, “your brother was dead, but now he is alive, he was lost, but now he has been found”. Why can’t we celebrate new life in others? Why can’t more churches celebrate the redemptive work of God in other churches? Why not start a powerful movement today by sharing authentic compliments with others? Speak words of encouragement to others today. Lift others up. Why can’t our culture spend the same amount of energy building people up as it does tearing others down? We can start a movement of compassion. Who would you speak to first? Write her or his name down and speak to them before the end of the day.