"Choices are for the Living" Stacking your stones

Choices are for the Living          

Joshua 4:1-7, “When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.” So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan.  Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you.  In the future, when your children ask you, “What do these stones mean?”  Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord.  When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

photo credit tommyimages.com

Deuteronomy 6:12, “Be careful not to forget your God who brought you out of Egypt.”  It’s interesting to me what the word, “memorial” means in Hebrew. It means to remember. Stacking your stones is not to mark a place of burial or temple, but a memorial to some sort of battle, a memorial reminds us of a place or time in our lives, it triggers a memory good or bad.  The Israelites were always forgetting about the Lord’s goodness. I know many people who visit their past only to be tormented by the actions and reactions of others but the Lord is saying, “Be careful not to forget your God who brought you out of Egypt.”  Egypt represented bondage and slavery and the Lord was saying remember me, your Lord. What has been your Egypt? Has the Lord brought you through of a drug addiction? Has He brought you through being molested as a child, or being raped? Or maybe God has brought you through of a pornography habit, a cigarette habit, or an ugly divorce. Or perhaps the Lord has brought you through cancer, eating disorder, fear, stroke, or suicidal thoughts.  Be careful Readers, not to forget the Lord who brought you out of your Egypt. When I look back on my own life I have a choice to make, I can remember how God brought me through or I can remember Egypt.  I can remember slavery or I can remember being set free.  I can remember the bondage I endure or I can remember my deliverance. Oh Readers, how our memories remind us of God’s faithfulness; it is a sign post to a lost world. The Apostle Paul says, “I forget about the past so I can press on to the future.”  Each stone represented a person, a tribe if you will and how God brought them through the Jordan to get to the other side. Many of you are still waiting on the wrong side of the Jordan you are pining for Egypt because it’s far better to remain in the pain of your past than to pick up your stone and carry it across, but you must pick up your stone and carry it across and lay it at the feet of Jesus. I believe the stone was a type and shadow of their previous bondage, despair, and suffering, it represented God’s ability to bring them through the trails of the promise of long ago according to Exodus 3:8, “So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Another interesting fact; in Hebrew milk represents spiritual and honey represents the best. So in essence the Lord was saying I have come down to deliver you from your oppression into a land filled with my spiritual best.

 In Deuteronomy 1:6-7, “The Lord your God has said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain.  Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites…Readers, for many of you God is saying, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain break camp and advance you have stood too long in front of a mountain that I have removed. I have offered you a land flowing with my spiritual best pick up your stone and carry it across because one day your children will ask, “What do these stones mean?” Each battle you’ve had in your life is another opportunity to stack a victory stone as your sign post of faith.  Choices are for the Living……

 Stacking my stones for Jesus…Michele Davenport

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