Rahab’s faith in Jehovah was inspired by the accounts of what He had done for His people since they left Egypt. Faith inspiring stories about what God has done in one’s life have a way of inspiring trust in Him. This should encourage us to boldly testify of the good things God had done in our life. There are always people out there just like Rahab whom God wants to save. They are waiting to hear a truthful and powerful account of what God had done so that they will be inspired to put their faith in God.
Believing that God would deliver the land of Canaan into the hand of the children of Israel, Rahab renounced her country, her sordid past and her pagan gods. She chose to embrace Jehovah and trust Him. A break with our past is needed if we are to wholly follow God. We need to look with anticipation to the new journey we embark upon to experience the adventure with God. We should deal with our past be done with it if we to walk victoriously in the new journey.
Like Rahab, we too must embrace Jehovah, the God of heaven above and the earth beneath and be fully convinced that He has the power to save. She revealed to the spies that the Canaanites were too petrified to engender any effective resistance. She was fully convinced that God not only had the power to save but also the mercy to offer to those who would willingly put their trust in Him. So, she came up to the spies and made a deal with them. She was prepared to risk her life to assist the Israelites in their mission if they in return would spare hers and the lives of her household. She was promised that her life and those of her family would be spared on the condition that she remained faithful and loyal to them.
Rahab agreed to three conditions to save herself and her household. Firstly, she must keep her promise not to reveal the whereabouts of the spies. Secondly, she must tie a scarlet cord on the window of her house for identification. And thirdly, she and every member of her household must be in the house during the day of the attack. With those agreements, the spies were let down from the wall to go and hide in the mountain for three days till it was safe for them to return to their camp east of Jordan. The agreement between Rahab and the spies speaks of the need to exercise responsibility. While the promise of the many blessings of God is there to be received, we need to respond appropriately to make them sure. God’s many promises can be discovered from His Word, but we can only enter into them by obediently and responsibly appropriating them.
Divine protection is always available to us just like it was granted to the spies, but like them, caution must be exercised. And just as their journey into the promised land is a divine-human collaboration, our claim to the abundant life requires that we responsibly collaborate with God and rightly appropriate them. It takes two hands to clap.
No comments:
Post a Comment