Hide It Not From Me

And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me।

There was no way that the Lord was going to allow Israel to enter into the promise land on the wrong foot. Miracle after miracle was accomplished in sight of the children, no other thing was needed in their lives, all things were provided for without fail. On that fatal day with pride in their hearts the fall was coming. Because they were prideful, the battle of Ai was a complete failure in and of themselves. We see the beginnings of the relationship that Israel would carry with them from the wilderness. They still had not figured out that God was for them, not against them. They totally disregarded Gods command and left back a portion in the battle. Yet there was according to the truths of the Bible..sin in the camp. Because of Achan's desire he looked upon the accursed thing, which I would have recommended not to look upon. It is at this point that the sin started to take shape, as he looked, he coveted, then he took, and hid it among the things of the congregation. Sometimes I look back on this piece of history and start to think about my own life. My walk with the Lord Jesus is affected the same way because of my flesh. If I were to keep my eyes on Jesus, not look at the things that this world has to offer then I can keep a true relationship with Him. When we look upon the things of this world and begin to desire, we automatically have a heart change this is where we must be on guard. In the beginning of recordable history the devil used this same tactic, ever able to be consistent with his ways for there is "nothing new under the sun". It was the ever consuming beguiling of the devil "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. In this case of Joshua and the nation there was one who desired because he took his eyes off of the task at hand, he desired, he took, and worse of all he hid it among themselves. There was no way for complete victory in the lives of the people, or in our lives unless we confess of the problem, then we must purge it from our lives. I praise God in heaven for sending His Son to die for my sins, Achan was brought out of the camp and stoned to death, this is what we deserve. With the grace and mercy of God, and because of the vicarious death of Christ our Savior we are kept from this act that is only befitting us. The accursed thing that Achan had, along with the sin of hiding it away nearly destroyed the camp. If there is hidden sin our our lives that goes unexposed (be warned..your sin will find you out) then it will destroy our relationship with Christ. He is ever ready to forgive us being the atoning sacrifice for our sins, we must however come boldly before the throne of grace and ask for the forgiveness. Friend I encourage you today to examine yourselves as the Bible commands, then after careful examining, if there is anything, even the littlest thing that is holding you back in your Christian walk, I beg you to confess it to the Lord and ask for forgiveness that you can make it right with Him and continue going forward.