Series: Youth for Jesus , Number: Vol. 3, No. 34
“The LORD said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.”” (Josh 7:10-12NIV)
The bible is very clear about the fact that God hates stealing. In other words, He does not want us to take anything that does not belong to us or that is not given to us by its owner and add to our own things. And it does not matter how we do this, whether it is force we are using or tricks, stealing is stealing before God.
Now stealing, apart from the fact that it exposes us to the danger of eternal judgment, is also able to expose us and even those in our lives to all kinds of afflictions here on earth. For instance, look at what God says to Joshua in our opening text. He says he and the people he is leading are vulnerable to destruction. But why? It is because one of them stole certain items that God had given them instructions to destroy. (Cf. Joshua 7:1)
Just think about that. The things the man, Achan, stole were not anybody’s properties. Rather, they were just items that God said that they should destroy. So, he must have said to himself, “Since these are mere items and not people, they cannot report to anybody that I took them or rise up to fight us back. More so, they are not anybody’s properties. Why, then, can’t I take some of them and keep for myself?” And that was exactly what he did. He took some of those things devoted to destruction and made them his own.
Unfortunately, what Achan did not know was that it was God he was stealing from. And the presence of those items he had stolen in the camp of his people, not just in his own house, turned God against them and made them vulnerable to destruction. So, when they went out to fight their enemies, enemies that were not as powerful as the ones they had initially conquered, they could not stand before them. Instead, they were soundly defeated. And as Joshua prayed about the matter, God told him that they had stolen items devoted to destruction and added them to their own possessions and that unless they got rid of those items and destroyed them, He would not be with them and they would remain vulnerable to defeat and destruction. So, the man had to do what he had to do – he found Achan, made him confess his sins and made sure that he, family and the things he had stolen were utterly destroyed. And that was the salvation of that nation. (Cf. Joshua 7)
Now perhaps the reason you too do not have peace in your life and are constantly defeated is that you have taken what belongs to God or to other people and added them to your own. Whatever your reasons may be for taking them, the fact remains that those things are not yours and so should not be in your possession. And because they are not yours, they can open the door for God’s judgment or demonic afflictions to come into your life, if you are not shown mercy. So, if the Lord is leading you to return such things, you should by all means do so. And if He is not, you should ask that He should, in His mercy, destroy whatever wrong influence those things have brought into your life or relationships.
Then it may be that what you need to experience progress or soundness of body is to pay what you have refused to pay certain people for the work they did for you. See, from what we are shown in Scriptures, other people’s properties that we have wrongly taken or added to our own can cry against us. And when they begin to do this, God’s judgment will certainly manifest against us. What forms this will take is not what I or anybody can say. But it is never going to be something you want or wish for. So, inasmuch as it is still within your ability to pay up what you owe, do so and free your life from unnecessary limitations or troubles. (Cf. James 5:4)
As we are shown in the bible, God, at two different times, punished two very powerful kings for taking the wife of Abraham to be theirs. But these two kings acted in complete ignorance. I mean that they acted on Abraham’s lies. Yet God was ready to destroy them and their households, if they would not return the man’s wife. But in what way were they wrong? They were wrong because they did not make enough findings about the woman before taking her in. Their lust for her beauty would not allow them to do so. And they got punished for that. (Cf. Gen 12 & 20)
Therefore, we can also get into trouble for ignorantly, foolishly or carelessly adding to our own what does not belong to us. That is because we may not be able to tell what sort of grief we are bringing to the owner of what we have ignorantly taken for ourselves. So, we need to be very careful in all our dealings with people in order for us not to unconsciously add to our own things that do not belong us and open the door for wrong influences to work in our lives. Then we need to learn to pray to God to continually open our eyes to see those things that don’t belong with us and that we need to send out of our lives and to recognize every satanic trap that may lead us into adding to our possessions things that don’t belong to us. And may His hand of mercy continue to keep us safe from every trap to steal and get into trouble, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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