Rolled away.....

Wednesday January 21, 2015

I´m ashamed to admit it, but sometimes I pray for God to grant me a good parking spot when I pick up my children from school. I wonder if I do this because deep down, I believe that God is able to take care of only the small things of life, and little more.

In Joshua 5, God told the people of Israel that He had rolled away the shame of Egypt from them (v.9). It´s important to understand that this was no small thing. For the "shame of Egypt" included the Israelites' constant complaining in the wilderness, their creation of the golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai and losing their faith in God when they were finally approaching the Promised Land. It represented the accumulated failures of generations of Israelites. But God rolled it all away after the people obediently practised the act of circumcision - an outward sign of the re-establishment of their covenant with God (vv. 2-8).

Today, God offers to roll away our shame through the work of Jesus, giving us a fresh start from even the worst and lowest moments of our lives. Consider how God reinstated Peter after his denial of Jesus and how he called the murderous Pharisee Saul to become the apostle Paul (John 21:15-19; Acts 9:3-18). Consider the sorrow of Good Friday being transformed into the joy of Easter morning (John 19:31-33, 20:11-17).

God does care about the small things, but His power isn´t limited to those things. He´s able to take the shame of our sin, no matter how heavey and burdensome, and roll it away. And so, we can sing with full hearts the words of the famous hymn : "My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!" - Peter Chin.

Read
Joshua 5:2-12
At that time the Lord said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again." So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth.
Now this is why he did so : All those who came out of Egypt - all the men of military age - died in the desert on the way after leaving Egypt. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the desert during the journey from Egypt had not. The Israelites had moved about in the desert forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord. For the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land that he had solemnly promised their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed.
Then the Lord said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you." So the place has been called Gilgal to this day.
On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passoever. The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land : unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan.

Psalms 103:8-12
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heaves are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Question to Ponder
Have you ever felt that your life was so dark that God would be unable to redeem it?
How has God removed your shame from you?
Is any shame too much for Him?

**Article taken from ODJ (Our Daily Journey with God) Dec 2014 - Feb 2015 issue