5 Days – An Introduction To Reading The BibleSýnishorn

What Do You Live For?  

Life is full of choices. What you choose to live for is the most important choice of all. Once you have made this choice, it will help you to make every other choice in life. 

Joshua summons all the people with him and tells them they have to choose how to spend the rest of their lives. He says, ‘choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve’ (v. 15). 

1. Why do you have to choose? 

Everyone is a servant – either voluntarily or involuntarily. Some people say, ‘I am free. I don’t serve anyone.’ But that is not one of the options. We serve either ‘the Lord’ or ‘foreign gods,’ as the passage says. Serving other gods leads eventually to emptiness, shame and death. Serving the Lord leads to freedom and the ability to make the right decisions for ourselves and our families. 

2. Why should you choose the Lord? 

The answer to Joshua’s question (v. 15) is that they should choose God because of what he has done for them (vv. 17–18). From our perspective, God has sent his Son Jesus to die for you and me and sent his Spirit to come and give us new life. He has liberated you from shame, addiction, fear and death. He has set you free to know God, to love and to be transformed into his likeness. 

3. What does it mean to choose to serve him? 

Joshua says they must ‘serve him with all faithfulness’ (v. 14). Literally, the word means ‘fullness,’ ‘completeness,’ ‘integrity.’ The people thought they could serve the Lord and keep the other gods as well. But serving the Lord involves all your heart and all your life. 

4. How do you choose to serve him? 

Joshua’s answer (v. 23) is two-fold: 

• ‘Throw away the foreign gods’ – Make sure that God has no rivals for his affection in your heart. 
• ‘Yield your hearts to the Lord’ – Put every area of your life into the hands of the Lord: your family, friends, time, work, money, sexuality, possessions and abilities. 

Choose for yourself this day whom you will serve (v. 15). 

Why not ask God to reveal if there are any ‘other gods’ in your life? If there are, you could resolve today to get rid of them. Choose today to serve the Lord for the rest of your life. You will never regret it.