Who Will You Serve?

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.  But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” 

– Joshua 24:15 (NIV)

All throughout the Old Testament, God’s people, Israel, struggled with their commitment to the LORD their God.  They wavered back and forth between different foreign deities, bowing down to idols made of wood, stone, gold, and silver.  They worshiped the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai when Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments and the Law of God.  They also served it in Bethel and Dan after they split into two different countries!

Today, we live in a world that is more full of different gods than in any other age of human history!  Not only do we serve different gods with proper names such as Buddha, Allah, Shiva, Brahma,  and Vishnu, but we also worship gods named anxiety, Me, stuff, money, sex, prosperity, success, iPhone, Android, alcohol, drugs, property, new cars, and new clothes! 

In this passage, the Israelites are at a crossroads in their history.  They had entered the promised land and had seen God at work in their lives from their exit from Egypt all through the desert wanderings for forty years.  They were given the choice of what God or gods they would serve.  It was their choice and they were free to make it.  They were not forced to choose the LORD.  It was fully their decision to make.  Joshua chose to set an example for the whole nation by telling them that he was choosing to serve the God who not only brought them out of Egypt and through the desert, but the God who had just handed them the promised land.  

Today, you are given a choice as well!  Who will you serve?  Will it be one or several of the gods of today?  Or will you choose to serve the one true God who loves the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, as the sacrifice that frees us from sin and death?  As for me and my household, we will choose to serve the LORD!