NOTE: Most of the information given from the bible is paraphrased. I encourage that you refer to the Bible for the biblical wording and also so as to get further and deeper in the knowledge of God and His word. God bless you as you read.
“When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shells, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent with the silver underneath.”(Joshua 7:21)…….
It was during the time that God had been fulfilling the promises of Abraham to his descendants of giving them the Promised Land. During this time, God had been fighting battles for them against their enemies through their army. All He had required of them is to take their positions and obey what God would ask them to do. They had won many of these battle and sometimes God would require them to take the plunder from their enemies after they had won the battles while other times, God would require them not to take anything. It was during the battle against the people of Ai where God had asked them not to carry anything with them from the battle that Achan decided to sin.
Achan had taken some of the things that he had found to be pleasant in his heart and decided to keep them for himself, although it was against the command of God. He had not just put them in his tent; he had gone further and dug them in the ground. That way, I believe he had thought to himself that no one who find them and thus no one would discover his disobedience. Reading this story makes me think about the many things that we do in secret. I know many times we struggle with various wickedness. However, although God has asked us not to commit them, we keep on doing it because we find them pleasurable. However, we do them in secret, that is without the knowledge of anyone and we appear innocent and ‘righteous’ it the eyes of everyone as we keep on telling others how good the Lord has been to us and how born again we are.
We have many things that we do in secret that we would not want anyone to know, not because we like it when people mind their own business but because they are ungodly and embarrassing. We know that if anyone discovered them, the way they perceive us would change. Sometimes we practice greed, impurity, sexual immorality and or many other evils that the bible warns us against. Some of these sins may include lust, selfish ambitions, hatred, fornication, masturbation, lesbianism and homosexuality, corruption, adultery; we worship things and people, power, jobs, money and many other evils. We have forgotten that there is no darkness too dark for God to see. That He sees everything we do.
The bible tells us that when the Israelites went to this battle against Ai, they lost it and this grieved Joshua together with their leaders. In their grieving, they went before the Lord and God exposed the sin that they had committed. Although they were a big number, God went through each one of them and eventually exposed Achan who had disobeyed God. Just like Achan, we deserve to be exposed. However, the Lord has been gracious to us and has given us time to change our wicked ways. God sent His son to set us free from our captivity. He desires for us to lay our burdens at His feet and give up our wickedness. The bible says that among us, there should be no hint of greed, impurity or sexual immorality (Ephesians 5:3)but some of us choose to hold on to it. God will expose us if we don’t change.
Remember the bible says that every hidden thing shall be brought to light (Luke 8:17 paraphrased). I believe that all the exposing takes place during our life time. Think about David for example. God did not wait for him to die that He would expose him during judgment day like some of us think. God made all his evils know to Nathan the prophet. He discerns our going out and our laying down. He is familiar with all our ways (Psalms 139 paraphrased). We have nothing to hide from Him and if we keep on disobeying Him, He might lose patience with us and expose us, which will not be very sweet.
However, we have a choice to surrender to Him all our hidden wickedness, lay it down at the cross of Jesus and let Him set us free from the things that hold us captive (Luke 4:18 paraphrased). The bible says that His grace enables us to say no to all forms of ungodliness ; including that pleasurable secret sin that is eating away your relationship with God (James 2:11-12 paraphrased) . He is able to forgive us if we confess our sins and surrender to Him. He is able to take away our guilt and to cleanse us and make us new. He will heal all our diseases in form of the secret sins. As for as the east is from the west will He take away our sins from us (Psalms 103 paraphrased). Just let go all the evil and He will give you the grace to be holy as He desires us to be.
Keep growing in Him!
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