I’ve spent a lot of years trying hard to be a good wife. I’ve cared for our kids, cleaned our home, cooked meals, washed laundry, tended the garden. But I kept seeing my husband’s frown. The harder I tried, the sadder he got.

A person scurrying around and getting work done misses a lot.  She’s not present.  She’s not available.  She’s more concerned about her chore list than someone else.  

One day, I sat down beside him.  I laid my head on his shoulder.  I stopped doing for him and started being with him—in the mornings before he left for work, in the evenings when he got home.  We began praying together.  

All these years, it wasn’t my work he wanted. It’s me.

This is a picture of what God wants, too. It’s not our do-gooding for him that he most wants. It’s our being with him, enjoying him, hanging out and talking, living in the beauty of his doing for us. This is what he cares about. And it makes sense, when you think about it.

The one who’s saved knows God like this—as their most intimate friend, the one they depend on and share everything with, the only one they can’t live without.

Today’s passages tell more about this kind of saving relationship.

Joshua 1-2

Moses has died and God speaks to Joshua, his replacement, to encourage him. It’s time to takeover the Promised Land. Since every inch of it is already their’s, all they have to do is go in and claim it, Josh 1:1-5.

God will be with him, just as he was with Moses, “I won’t give up on you; I wont leave you.  Strength!  Courage!”  Joshua is the man he’s chosen to do it, so “give it everything you have, heart and soul,” Josh 1:5-6 MSG.

And here, God gives a command with a success promise built in: if Joshua keeps all the words God spoke to Moses and does what they say, pondering and meditating on them, making sure he does everything that’s been written, “prosperous and successful.” The power for success is in doing what God says, Josh 1:7-8 MSG.

Just yesterday, I heard a similar message with different words in Deuteronomy. Today, the message sounds even stronger in Joshua. Knowing God’s word, taking it to heart and doing it…this is the secret for “getting where you’re going,” for the successful life we all want, Josh 1:7-8 MSG.

Do we believe what God says for how to find it?

Thanks to the Gideons, there’s a Bible in every hotel room in America. There are free Bible apps for our phones; there are copies on dusty shelves in our homes. The Bible isn’t hard to find; it’s available everywhere we are.

So why don’t we read it, ponder it, love it?  

Maybe it’s because we don’t really believe God knows what he’s talking about. When he says knowing his words and doing what they say bring success, it sounds too simplistic. It’s easy to dismiss. But either God’s words are true or they’re lies from the pit. You get to choose if you will believe and respond to them.

One thing is sure: they’re very clear, “Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth, meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful,” Josh 1:8 NIV.

The proof of what you believe is in how you live—how you start your day, how you end it, how you treat your neighbor, your spouse, your kids. Unless you believe that the power to live a good life lies in doing what God says, you won’t pick up a Bible, at least not daily.

Rahab’s story that comes next keeps the Bible reading message in perspective. Just in case we’re tempted to think that reading the Bible will save us, Rahab, reminds us that Bible reading, good as it is, isn’t the ticket, Josh 2.

Clearly, she didn’t have a Bible. She was an outsider, not one of God’s people. As a prostitute, she certainly wasn’t upstanding, even among her own people. There’s nothing about her life that merited respect, let alone saving.

But she’d heard about Israel’s God, and what he’d done for Israel, and she believed in him.   So she asks the spies she helps to save her when they come back to take Jericho, and they do. Turns out, her faith in God was enough.  It was her ticket out of Jericho and into God’s family, Josh 2:8-13.

Rahab and her whole family are spared because of the red rope hanging in her window, a sign that those inside belong to God, a sign that Jesus’ blood covers them, Josh 2:14-21.

Not only is her life saved, she becomes part of the nation of Israel. She leaves her past and marries an Israelite named Salmon. Her son is Boaz, the father of Obed, whose grandson is King David. And on down the line, Jesus is born into this same family tree, with a hooker as his great, great, great…grandma. Gotta love God’s flare for drama, Ru 4:13-22; Mt 1.

Rahab didn’t earn her place with God, and we don’t either. Bible reading is an important life hack, and only a fool would refuse to do it. But grace is a gift and must be received that way, with thanksgiving—not with doing.

Any temptation to depend on your own merit puts you outside. It’s only by the red rope hanging in the window, by the blood of Jesus, by his crown of thorns, by his final breath, by his empty tomb, by faith in this risen Savior that we’re grafted in and become part of his family, just like Rahab was.

This speaks to me, because I’m tempted to feel good about myself because I read the Bible. But Bible reading and pride about it won’t take me inside. I’ve got to check it at the door and admit I’m as much a scoundrel as Rahab was. Only sinners get saved, after all.

The one who gets saved trusts only in Jesus.

Luke 13:18-35

Someone in the crowd listening to Jesus asks if only a few will be saved, and Jesus answers that he needs to focus on his own saving, because “the way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention,” Lk 13:23-24 MSG.

Many will assume they’re in who aren’t. Because they’ve grown up in the neighborhood of religion, they think they know about salvation—they assume they get it. But they don’t, Lk 13:25-27.

They’ll protest and say they’ve known God all their lives, but Jesus says their kind of knowing about him isn’t enough. It’s a different knowing that matters. It will be upside-down world, where outsiders get in and insiders are out, Lk 13:26-30.

As with Rahab, it’s not who you are, or what you know. It’s not being raised in a Christian home or going to church or reading the Bible. Being saved is about who you trust. That’s what gets you inside that door.

The one who gets saved trusts Jesus, not what they know.

Psalm 80

Here’s another feisty, fiery prayer from Asaph, where he calls on God to wake up and do something about the trouble they’re in, “how long will you smolder like a sleeping volcano while your people call for fire and brimstone?” Ps 80:1-2 MSG.

Their tears flow by the bucketful; they’re mocked by enemies.   But if God would simply smile on them, that would turn things around.  If they have him, they have everything they need, Ps 80:3-7.  

As he did in Psalm 79, Asaph stands on God’s love for them as grounds for taking God to task and asking for his help.  It’s a bold stance.  He says God no longer protects them, but lets pigs crash through and crush them, Ps 80:12-13.

He’s also bold to tell God to “take a good look at what’s happened” and care for them as the favored children they’ve been. He doesn’t mention the sin that got them into this fix: he looks to the man at God’s “right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself,” Ps 80:17.

It’s because of the Savior who would come that Asaph has courage to ask for God’s help. He’s the one who “breathe[s] life into our lungs so we can shout your name!” If they have God’s “blessing smile,” in Jesus, “that will be our salvation,” Ps 80:14-19 MSG and NIV.

When the chips are down, what’s your go-to? Figuring out where you messed up? Trying to fix it? Asaph doesn’t bother. He goes straight to God and says to look at the heckuva mess we’re in and rescue us, because of your right hand man. Jesus gives us God’s smile, and that’s enough to save us, Ps 80:19.

The one who gets saved trusts in Jesus for God’s favor.

Prayer

God, I know I’m ultimately saved because of my faith in Jesus, but I need regular, everyday saving, too—from food addiction, relational issues, fear of the future, sadness over aging. I could plan and plot how to deal with these, but you’re the One I need. Your smile changes everything. Help me feel it.

In Jesus’ name.

Proverbs 12:26-27

The good life will survive trouble, but the wicked life asks for it. 
Laziness brings emptiness, but hard work brings rewards.

Passages from Joshua, Luke, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in The Yearly Bible.