Lena Journals to Joshua 24 Tonight :-)

Have you come and presented yourself to God? You have been summonsed by the third Personage of God, the Holy Spirit, to bring your life under examination of His righteous eyes?
This summons is a happening for all of us at sometime in our lifetime’s. We will either stand before God now or later on. If we accept that presentation now, later will quite possibly work out more securely.
Ya know, maybe no one in your whole family’s lineage may have ever submitted themselves to stand before God, and to be seen as unrighteous without the saving power of Christ Jesus, and no one before you may have considered their need to make Him their Lord and number one consideration and priority in life. No one may have wanted to be made to become righteous through the power of the blood of God’s Son Jesus Christ. So, you may be the first, an Abraham in your line and for future generations that will be effected by your decisions!
So your family served themselves in life or did their very best with what they knew. God wants to take each of us from the land of our ancestors and give us a new lineage, one of an eternal order. He wants us to have sons and daughters after the spirit. Ones who live life eternally, and ones who are saved from the death grip of eternal darkness.
Please know, being saved is not just for bad people who have messed up royally. Each person, good, bad, or otherwise, must come to know and serve Jesus as Lord. God created the whole universe. Man is a huge part of His creation. Freewill beings must acknowledge their Creator as God, and join Him in His plan. This is our Destiny. This is what we account to God for in life.
So, when we meet Christ, we may be good people, with great intentions and all, but everyone has to stand before His Creator and acknowledge both who they are, in the light of who He is. Remember pride would love to tell us we are god and great and in no need of anyone else. That is an eternal trap for the lost to step into, watch out for it! Salvation boils down to the acknowledgement and following action of created beings knowing their Creator and making Him and His will and love known to all mankind.
Remember satan stepped up and said I wanna be in Your spot- God, and that is not how it works. God sets beings in the spots He wants them in, beings do not set themselves in exalted spots.
This is the battle summation of all creation. Think about it, everything revolves around man getting ahead, making a name, paving a way.
Who is King?
Everything we do, venture out into, and go after, speaks of who we love and who we serve and who we value.
Lordship is about ultimate and eternal value.
Serve the Lord alone.
Honor the Lord, with your life’s actions.
There is a saying with some at our church, “Others may”, we have the liberty even in Christ to do whatever we want and no one needs to tell us what to do ever, “but I may not”, live at liberty to my own whim and ways. I set my life up in such a way to only act on what I know would bring honor to the will of God in any given situation. That kind of person is someone who believes God is.
“Others may, but I may not.”
Why?
It’s all about choice, because I choose not to take that liberty.
We are free to choose our own ways, but we choose to obey and walk in the ways of the Lord.
We never have to do His will, ever, but what an honor to God when someone does not have to do His will, and will do it anyway!
That is the highest level of honor.
You are free to do things as you like, but you don’t take your liberty.
How big is God? The personal question always is - How valuable is He to me?
So honor the LORD and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt.
Serve the LORD alone. But if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, then choose today whom you will serve.
Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live?
But as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD."
This is a decision everyone will make in life. If one does not decide, then they have decided, and for one to decide for the Lordship of Christ, that decision will need to be protected and guarded and kept forever. It is costly to serve the Lord and Him only, especially when others in your family line, or the world you have been raised in, did not make that choice and raise you up that way.
So we, too, will serve the LORD, for he alone is our God."…
How does that happen? Do you think it just happens for the chosen, or the lucky, or the preferred.
No, it happens for those who make it happen, because it is imperative to them and the generations after them that it does. We choose to succeed in working with God, to bring forth new generations of the Lord Jesus Christ! We choose to walk in new life and learn new ways. We choose to forsake all others and cleave only to the principles found for us and written and defined for us in God’s word. We choose to walk in His ways compared to our own.
We choose life everyday, or death comes to us and our generations after us.
This is so where it is at. We make promises to God, because we accept and like His offers for a righteous lifestyle of blessings and we must prove our love and faith true.
Then Joshua said to the people, "You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a holy and jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve other gods, he will turn against you and destroy you, even though he has been so good to you."
But the people answered Joshua, saying, "No, we are determined to serve the LORD!"
"You are accountable for this decision," Joshua said. "You have chosen to serve the LORD." "Yes," they replied, "we are accountable."
ARE you determined to serve the Lord, HIS way?
If you are not determined, then that is why you are where you are now, either confused, or struggling or defeated.
Accountability, is not just telling someone what you’ve done. It is a willing check in system to say, hey this is the life I now want, does what I now feel I’d like to do fit the definition of my new life? Does it match God’s standard? If I choose it, this is why I’m choosing it right now, and I’m willing for someone else to see what I’ve chosen, and help me see where I am compared to where I’d really like to go, as I grow up in Him.
Our faith has to be proven as genuine, or else it is not true, either to us, or God or others, who should be led by our faith towards God.
Obey God alone…..That is HUGE and a HUGE statement of faith that will be tried and have to be willingly proven, even fought for. How does one know when they say something such as this that they can carry through and do it?
You decide and whatever it takes, Do it!
That is covenant behavior. We keep our word even to our own hurt.
People minimize this a lot.
Watering down the word.
Joshua (Jesus) said “upon this rock, the truth of the word of God, will all of our words stand”. We will give an account and stand before God, for saying what we may wish for, but do not really mean. Our words in Christ can no longer be cheaply spent or given out with no regard.
Do you understand that God wants us to give words and then prove and keep them? Not giving the words will also be a thing to stand for. God will ask us something like, “why did you not trust Me enough to say, and mean, and keep words?”
Keeping words takes faith in God!
All right then," Joshua said, "destroy the idols among you, and turn your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel."
24The people said to Joshua, "We will serve the LORD our God. We will obey him alone."
25So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day at Shechem, committing them to a permanent and binding contract between themselves and the LORD Then Joshua told them…. "This stone has heard everything the LORD said to us. It will be a witness to testify against you if you go back on your word to God."