Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Wednesday 11/03/2010)

Messing With What Is God’s Devoted Things…

Joshua 7:1, 19-26

¹BUT THE Israelites committed a trespass in regard to the devoted things; for Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the things devoted [for destruction]. And the anger of the Lord burned against Israel.

¹⁹And Joshua said to Achan, My son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and make confession to Him. And tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me. ²⁰And Achan answered Joshua, In truth, I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this have I done: ²¹When I saw among the spoils an attractive mantle from Shinar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. Behold, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath. ²²So Joshua sent messengers, who ran to the tent, and behold, the spoil was hidden in his tent, with the silver underneath. ²³And they took them from the tent and brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites and laid them out before the Lord. ²⁴And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan son of Zerah, and the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that he had; and they brought them to the Valley of Achor. ²⁵And Joshua said, Why have you brought trouble on us? The Lord will trouble you this day. And all Israel stoned him and those with him with stones, and afterward burned their bodies with fire. ²⁶And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger. Therefore the name of that place has been called the Valley of Achor or Troubling to this day.

Throughout my whole life I have heard people use the scripture in I Chronicles 16:22, which says, “Saying, Touch not My anointed, and do My prophets no harm,” in reference to people doing wrong by God’s chosen people. As I read my scriptures today, I was reading through the book of Joshua, and as I began to read through the seventh chapter the Lord began to deal with me, about Achan and how he mishandled, misappropriated and lied about the things that God had intended to be devoted and set apart for himself. We will receive instruction, or even if we do not know God well, but we recognize what is His, but we choose to lay claim to, we gain access to, and we lie to gain access to God’s anointing, His anointed things or His anointed people, in spite of what we know is right. But then we expect that although we have knowledge that these things and people belong to God we choose to do with them as we please, with the expectation that all will be okay and we will come out untouched in the situation and that we will be able to mishandled what is God’s and it will go unnoticed, but we do not understand God’s law, and how He operates. God is a jealous God and He will not allow anything to place them (selves) above Him, without Him dealing with them and their arrogance and pride. We are remiss because we think that God will not bother to deal with us over something we look at as so small, or something we have reduced in our sight as insignificant, but what is insignificant to us, is major to God.

We give little thought to how we treat people and the things that God has predestined to be His, we think just because we see no sense in worrying about it because we think that God is not concerned, but He is, and there is definitely a price to pay when we take God’s anointed, devoted, blessed, consecrated things and people and lay them to waste, bury them in grief or pain, abuse them, or misuse them. It is better for us to repent and ask for forgiveness, so that we do not end up ordaining our own undoing, our own demise, cutting our life short, or our blessings and happiness even shorter. God has His hand on certain people and on certain events and elements. We need to learn to reverence the anointing on people’s lives and what God has said is His. We have lost our respect for the things of God, we are always making excuses and thinking there is time to get things right with people and with God, but tomorrow is not promised to us and the more we take for granted, the more we open ourselves up to God dealing with us in a way that will serve as a reminder to many that He was not pleased with our lives, the way we lived it and our treatment of His people and His instruments.

Make a choice today that you will not end up as Achan, choosing your will and your wants over God’s will and way. We need to recognize what is God’s and honor it and respect who they belong to. God’s wrath is nothing to play with and His eyes are ever upon us, watching what we do and how we act. If we want Him before us, blessing us, and on our side we need to be respectful of the things and the people devoted to Him, for truly if we destroy something of His, there is a penalty to be paid, that is why so many of us are sick and going through changes, struggling and unable to come out of a rut, because we have chosen not to respect what Belongs to the Most High God! As they say, “check yourself before you wreck yourself!”