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| January 14 | | | | | And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the LORD your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over: that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever. | | | | Joshua 4:19-24 | | | | | Paul proclaimed that the three greatest and most important components of life are faith, hope, and love. In the Book of Joshua, we see the people had hearts of hope in chapter 2 when the spies came back and said, “Truly the Lord has delivered the Land into our hands.” In chapter 3, they took steps of faith as they put the soles of their feet into the Jordan River, believing God would meet them in the process. And here we see the third component - a picture of love. Twelve stones stacked together in one monument - twelve stones representing twelve tribes, fit together in unity - would be the sign that the Israelites had crossed over the Jordan, that they had been “baptized” a second time. Peter says that, as believers, we are living stones that are fit together in unity (1 Peter 2:5). When you come to church, not out of obligation but because you want to be linked together with fellow blockheads and stones, your love for them is a sure sign of your being touched deeply by the Spirit. “All men shall know you are My disciples,” said Jesus. By your speaking in tongues? No. By your gift of healing? No. “They’ll know you are My disciples by your love” (see John 13:35). In 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, Paul discusses spiritual gifts and their manifestations. But packed between them is chapter 13, a chapter that deals exclusively with love because love is the defining characteristic of one who has had an encounter with the Spirit. “Father, let them be one,” Jesus prayed in John 17, “that the world might know that I am in You and that You are in Me.” In other words, love within the Body of Christ is proof positive to a world that is skeptical that Jesus is risen and real, alive and well. | |
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