Choose This House

Transcript

My friend, what joy it is to be with you another day. This is By God's Call — day 71, Choose This House.

Joshua was already over a hundred years old. He had seen the sea part, seen walls fall, buried nearly an entire generation in the wilderness, and watched a new generation enter the promised land. And now, old, near the end, he gathers all Israel at Shechem for one last speech. And you know what he chooses to say, with the little time he has left? He doesn't talk about battles. He talks about worship.

"And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15.

Notice how specific Joshua is. He doesn't speak of "idolatry" in the abstract. He names the gods. The gods beyond the river, where the ancestors came from — that old, inherited idolatry, half-forgotten but still alive in some corner of the house. And the gods of the Amorites, the gods of the land they now lived in — the new idolatry, the kind you pick up just from being surrounded by it. Joshua is saying: you will serve something. The question was never whether, but what.

And that's still true today. Everyone serves something — work, other people's approval, comfort, fear, one's own image. Neutrality doesn't exist. The human heart is always serving some master. Joshua's question crosses three thousand years and lands on you, today: whom are you actually serving — not with your mouth, but with your life?

And look at the word he chooses: today. Not "someday." Not "when I'm more certain." Not "after I sort a few things out." Today. Because delayed faith, in practice, is refused faith. How many times have we said, "I'll get closer to God once things settle down"? Joshua doesn't leave that exit open. He closes the door of tomorrow and opens only the door of today.

But the most beautiful part of this verse isn't just Joshua's decision for himself. It's that he takes responsibility for his whole household. "As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." He doesn't make a private, hidden, individual choice. He positions himself as spiritual leader in front of the entire nation, and says: this house has a direction, and I am the one giving it.

That's real leadership — not imposition, but responsibility taken up. If you have children, a spouse, aging parents, anyone under your roof: someone in that house is leading spiritually, even if silently. The question is whether that leadership is being taken up with intention, or left to chance.

That's why this line of Joshua's has hung on the walls of Christian homes across generations and around the world. Because it captures, in a single sentence, what it means to plant a flag in the ground of your own house and say: here, today, we serve the LORD.

So here is today's invitation: tonight, gather whoever lives with you — even if it's only for two minutes — or, if you live alone, pray these words out loud, by yourself, with the same conviction as Joshua. Say: "as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." It doesn't need to be overly solemn. It needs to be true.

I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.