Keeping God's Commandments

But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to obey his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul. --Joshua 22:5

Joshua knew how important it was to follow God and keep his commands. God had blessed Joshua and allowed him to see many great things in his life. Joshua listened to God right from the start and because of that, not only did he get to enter the Promised Land (unlike Moses, the leader before him), but he also got to be a part of all the feats of power that God di for his people. Steadily, Joshua and the Israelites crushed kings, overtook fortified cities, and divided up the Promised Land into portions for God's people. None of that would have been possible if Joshua and the other Israelites had not been able to recognize that they needed to rely on God as their source of strength.

God wants to do mighty things through us too. Maybe he doesn't want us to march around any cities and make their walls fall, but perhaps he can use us to help break down the walls around the hearts of our non-Christian friends. To do this, we need to be a strong example and witness. We need to walk in all God's ways, even when those ways don't make sense or when his way isn't the popular way of doing things.

Just like Joshua, we are commanded to obey God. It's not enough to simply be aware of his commands as given to us throughout the Bible. We need to be more than just hearers of God's word; we need to do what it says (James 1:22). The greatest commandment that we are given is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

Nothing should be of greater importance to us than serving God and keeping his commands. For Joshua, it was his duty as the leader of Israel to be a strong witness. We don't need such a prominent position in the public eye in order to serve God effectively. We must serve him where we are whether it's at college, in the home, or at the office. No matter where God has placed us, if we want to be able to experience all the awesome things he can do, we need to obey him. We need to walk in his ways, hold fast to him, and serve him with all that we are.