March 25th, 25: Witnessing God's Fulfilled Promises and Our Call to Love

Welcome to today's episode of the Daily Radio Bible, where we journey together through the scriptures, letting God's word speak to our hearts. I'm your host, Hunter, and on this 84th day of our trek through the Bible, we're diving into the book of Joshua, chapters 21 and 22, Psalm 47, and 1 Corinthians 10. Today, we'll explore how the Israelites obeyed God's commands, dividing the land among the Levites through sacred lots. We'll also witness a tense moment among the tribes as potential conflict is resolved through understanding and faith. Then, we'll look to the New Testament for Paul's reminder of the struggles we face and the victorious life we are offered through Christ. Join me as we walk through these passages and open our hearts to the transformative love of God. Let's get started!

TODAY'S DEVOTION:

Paul is reminding us that we all struggle in the desert. We all experience temptation. In the Old Testament, the struggle in the desert took these people out. They failed to believe. They failed to enter into what God had done and who they now were. They were God's special possession. God had delivered them out of slavery into freedom. God had given them a land as their own, but they succumbed to the temptation of unbelief, and it resulted in their bodies being littered across the wilderness. They never realized who they were and how they were to exist, but not for us.

Paul doesn't want us to get confused and think that these desert wanderings are some kind of example for us or to think that it is somehow analogous to us, to the normal Christian life to struggle and die in the wilderness, to struggle and fail with temptation, to have our bones littered about in the desert. No. The normal Christian life that Paul is pointing us to is the life of Christ living and abiding in you, the victorious life. Overwhelming victory has happened in Christ on the cross. Where Adam failed, Christ has won.

First Corinthians fifteen twenty one says, for since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being. For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ Jesus. The consequences of Christ's victory have fundamentally altered your being. You are no longer a slave. You are his special possession. You're his child. And this act of deliverance wasn't just for some obscure little tribe in North Africa. No. It was done for all humanity. You are in him. You have been drawn into the very life of God. This is the truth of your being, and it's all a gift.

Will you have challenges? Will you have temptations and suffering in this life? Yes, you will. But that does not change what has happened to you. And the spirit's life in you now has made a way for you to endure through all these struggles in the grace and the peace of our Lord. Second Peter one four says, god has enabled you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires. The truth of our being is that Christ has made us partakers of his divine nature. The way of our being is now empowered by the nature of god himself, his presence in you.

And here's the thing. I can go on and on talking about this. And some of you are thinking that maybe I have. But the truth is this, only god can reveal god. And so my prayer today is that god will reveal himself to you. He'll reveal the truth of your being to you that you will begin to realize what he did on that cross has changed everything. You are his. You are forgiven. You are loved. You are made new. You've been given freedom, and you've been given a new land to live in, a land that is flowing, flowing with life in him. As the revelation of Christ breaks forth in your heart, in your mind, you'll have a new power to live a new way, the way of faith and hope and love. It will be a self-giving life, a radically forgiving life, a co-suffering life. It'll be the cruciform life of Christ living his life in and through you.

That's a prayer that I have for my own soul. And that's a prayer that I have for my family, for my wife, and my daughters, and my son. And that's a prayer that I have for you. May it be so.