“And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15, NKJV.
We are, I am sure, quite familiar with Joshua’s forceful plea urging Israel to choose Jehovah God and serve Him, and Him only. And we are, no doubt, equally familiar with Israel’s decision on that day. They boldly declared that they would not forsake Jehovah to serve other “gods” (24:16). How could we forsake the God who delivered us from Egypt and drove the Canaanites out before us? (24:17-18) When Joshua reminded his audience that they could not serve both a holy God and other “gods,” they insisted a second time that they would serve the Lord only (24:19, 21).
The decision Israel made that day was a commendable one. Choosing to serve God over idolatrous “gods” is always the right choice. But, what exactly was involved in that decision, or choice? What were they agreeing to do? How far reaching was their pledge to serve Jehovah? To understand what they pledged, consider the concepts inherent in the act of choosing.
The word rendered as choose, “bachar,” means “to choose, elect, decide for.” Of particular interest here is the use and meaning of the word decide. The word “incision” comes to us from the Latin term “incisio,” the act of cutting into or cutting open. The Latin “decisio” is based on the same root word, but rather than cutting into, the word means “cutting off,” in the sense of diminishing a thing.
The choice that Israel was asked to make was not only a choice for God — it was a choice which inherently demanded a “cutting off” of everything else that usurped the place and authority of God. Israel was urged by Joshua to serve Jehovah God to the exclusion — the cutting off — of all that pretended to be God. Twice Israel affirmed that they would serve God to the exclusion of serving the “gods” of their ancestors, and in so doing, they cut themselves off from any worship or devotion to them.
And what of our decisions? We choose to do good. But do we choose good to the exclusion of all evil? We decide to serve God. But have we decided to cut off all else that is not connected to our service of God. Sometimes our decisions are not so exclusive. We determine to follow a certain course, all the while realizing that we can fall back to another path if we need, or want, to. We have not “burned all of our bridges,” but rather keep them intact so that we can rely on them to span the chasms created when we fail to serve God exclusively. When we serve God the way Israel claimed they would serve God, there is no need for another way, another “god,” another choice.
Choosing God demands the cutting off of everything that is not what God wants for us. Choosing God is not like choosing what you want to eat for lunch. You choose one thing, but you could just as easily have selected a satisfactory alternative.
Have you chosen God? Or have you just chosen one of many equally appealing alternatives? Have you chosen good? Or have you merely picked what is convenient at the moment?
“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” Make it God — and cut off all the rest.This item originally appeared in Media Minutes, 12/29/02
