devoted things

Sometimes we fight a good fight and wonder why we are still plagued with trouble. If the trouble is sin, this works against our faith, sometimes leading us to doubt we once were saved! Today the Lord had me reading in the book of Joshua and I came upon a lesson that was for the Israelites, and is still good for today. It’s the lesson learned after the battle of Ai.

The campaign against Ai followed the Israelite’s victory against the city of Jericho. Before Joshua led the campaign against Jericho the Lord gave specific instructions about what to do with the contents of the city. He said to “keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury,” (Joshua 6:18-19). But Achan kept a robe, and both gold and silver as plunder and hid it in his tent. Therefore, when the Israelites went to battle against Ai, they lost. When Joshua lamented to the Lord about their loss, the Lord told him that Israel had broken their covenant with God, and that there was stolen stuff in the camp. What stands out about this rebuke is that the Lord also said, “That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.” Here the Lord is talking again about the “devoted things,” (7:12).

I do not believe this lesson for today is as much about physical “stuff” as it is about how we do our spiritual battles. We may gain one victory in a tough area of our life, but in an easier area we cannot seem to maintain victory. At the caution of not blaming God for abandoning us, how do we examine our sincerest efforts in the face of a definite defeat? I believe the answer is found in Achan’s error; he was attracted to things he knew would lead to his destruction . . . attractive things from the enemy’s city.

Perhaps it would be easy for us to spot things if they were physically in our enemy’s city, and there was such a city for us to defeat. However, we do not fight against flesh and blood (people), but “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms,” (Eph 6:12). Our battle is against an unseen foe. Where that may seem unfair for these unseen forces to take pot-shots at God’s people, we do have a description of what their shots are. Paul mentions that the weapons of our spiritual warfare are not the same as the world, but have “divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,” (2 Cor 10:4-5). Here we learn that our mind is a battle field between our dedication to think truth, and satan’s lying thoughts. Knowing that satan will come to us in battle with thoughts that would be attractive to us, what would those thoughts sound like? What thoughts would cause us to accept our own defeat? And how does satan stop a Christian who is winning the battle?

One effective way to stop a Christian from winning his battle is to accuse him of being self-righteous, and cause him to believe it would be more humble to withdraw from what he is doing. If the person is a worship leader, he would step down from his position. If she is studying to become a pastor, she will let it go and lead Sunday School instead. These people have accepted an accusation from satan; a thing devoted to their destruction. In fact, they are sometimes attracted to it because of the fierceness of the battle, wanting to quit rather than press on into the victory. A person who has quit before victory can often be heard quoting the very accusations satan used to defeat them, such as “I was too full of myself to serve God,” or “I really am seeking to exalt myself, seeing that I’m a woman and would be preaching to men.”

Having lying thoughts that are yet un-acted upon is the precursor to wrong actions. While in the mind they can still be pulled down, and made to submit to the truth. In the case of the accusation of being self-righteous, the truth is that our righteousness is not our own; it’s by faith in Christ (Phil 3:9). In that case, we can serve God in the manner He leads us to. If a man really wants to win the battle against satan he not only needs to pull down the stronghold of the accusation, but he needs to turn away from the attraction of false humility, which is what this example uses as a “devoted thing.” False humility would cause a man or woman to forsake their calling, and it comes from the city of the very enemy we try to defeat.

When a believer acts upon the accusation satan speaks, even repeating it himself, we say it is a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” In other words, what he says is actually happening in his life. He has come to the point where he believes what his enemy said. His agreement with the accuser adds power to the enemy’s attack against him because he is divided against his own efforts to win. And herein is his dilemma; no matter how much he wanted the victory in the beginning, he becomes unable to stand. Just as the Israelites could not win against Ai because there was a “devoted thing” in their midst, he also cannot stand with a “devoted thing” or accusation kept in his thoughts by his own agreement.

To have a complete victory we see that we must have a confession of what is true, as well as pulling down what is not true. Asserting scriptures as a response to satan’s attacks is an excellent weapon for us to use, as is quoting prophecy and revelation about our own lives. This trains us to be attracted to Truth and Victory, instead of lies and defeat. And we will have the glorious reward of obtaining the promises God has spoken over our lives. Joshua and his army went back to Ai and defeated them after eliminating the “devoted things” from their camp. We also will win our battles and obtain the promises of God for our lives, for He wants to fight alongside. Let us encourage one another today so that none of us give up in our good fight of faith. Amen.