Today I read about Joshua’s defeat at Ai (Joshua chapter 7). As I am reading Scripture, like you I am trying to read, study, and apply what I am reading. People in my generation know that “Knowledge is power!”. We know that because we grew up watching School House Rock. I apologize for this reference for those readers that are under 35–I am apologizing only because you missed out on some great Saturday morning learning times!!

Anyway, “knowledge is power” but what I have learned since then is that the power knowledge gives us is only realized when we have internalized that knowledge and know it in our heart!

In Joshua chapter 7, the Israelite army is given a swift defeat by an enemy that should have been easily routed. Joshua, in utter dismay after the defeat, cries out to the Lord, “Alas, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us?” He goes on another couple of verses basically complaining to God about the defeat.

What Joshua is about to find out is that Achan took some items that were supposed to be destroyed in Jericho after its fall. Basically, Joshua found out that victory couldn’t be theirs because they were in sin.

As I read this, I thought to myself, “How many times have I gone whining to God about this or that and didn’t even realize that I had sin that wasn’t dealt with in my life?” I was just like Achan! Which suffice it to say, scared me because Achan (and all of his family) gets stoned to death and then burned for his sin.

Hadn’t Achan heard the very clear instructions given before Jericho fell that there was to be nothing taken other than precious metals that would go to the treasury of the Lord’s house? Yes, he had knowledge of it, but he didn’t know it in his heart. So, when he was tempted with “a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels” he “coveted them and took them” (verse 21).

That is why head knowledge alone won’t get us anywhere! We have to know the truth in our hearts and repent of our sins. Knowledge is a required course, but the graduate level courses of life require that we know the Truth in our hearts which will lead to the development of our “chest” as C.S. Lewis called it, so that we can then live out our faith in this world.

The challenge for this week is to take the time to search your heart and see if there are sins in your life that need to be dealt with. Then, don’t wait, but deal with them now!

Let’s make 2014 a year of increased heart devotion to our Lord!

More to come…
Jeremy