Ganti Vivek

Jesus example of associating with sinners is that His very purpose of coming as son of man is to bring every soul to salvation by spreading the good news, so more than the righteous persons He befriended with the sinners, He visited them to bring change. His real buddies are His disciples whom He trained to be His ambassadors to spread the good news of gospel, and today who ever does that is His buddie. Our association with nonbelievers should be to spread the gospel to them and bring them to salvation but not we following their pagan Gods. The effect of not having friendship with non christian will have very drastic effect on the spread of good news of eternal kingdom, in fact because the early missionaries have made friendship with the local people and spread the word of God by which today most of us are saved including me this way, through my parents.

Israelite's have to throw out the foreign Gods because as God's first commandments states them to strictly, as said in Deu 5:7 thou shall not have none other Gods before me. These are all pagan Gods in idol form made by human beings called by different names. These images and idols when they are in our homes, it indicates that we have allowed them to stay with us instead of our God, we get influenced by these and drift towards them, it indicates we have become disobedient to God, we are trying to serve two masters at the same time. Here foreign goods mean not only pagan Gods but also all those that we love more than our God and give first place to in our lives, may be our position, children, money, drugs, alcohol and several habits with which we spend more time than our Lord God. They contaminate our lives and homes. It involves our hearts to be cleaned first and throw away from our hearts what ever idols are stacked inside us, sweep it clean and allow our lord to stay in our hearts and make it his temple as said in 1cor 3:16.

Holiness can be defined as to live without any trace of sin, And it is possible only by having Faith in the Son of God Jesus Christ and believing in the cross. And our holiness should reflect in our life style by keeping our spiritual life high by walking exactly the way Jesus showed us to walk and keeping the body and flesh, wants and desires away, because these two are against each other, our life style should set as an example in the non believers as Paul said to follow him as a model.

As believers sometimes we are tempted to think that because of our own strength and good deeds we have attained and accomplished several things in life, we forget to thank God for all that He has done for us, but think because of my prayers, fasting, my advice etc, self pride will try to dominate without glorifying God. We don't do anything but expect God to do everything for us, without working hard for it, God expects us do our bit to provide what we need like, when God provided "Manna" from heavens, He expected the Israelites to get up early in the morning pickit for the day and if anybody is lazy and picks for 2 days it gets spoiled. So one has to work to get the blessings fulfilled sitting idle will not help. pray and work for to achieve what is required, then leave it His will. Learn to lead a proper balance. The present day church goers go to church only for getting something from God and they are tilting only to one one side.

Acsah's character is that of bold and God fearing in nature all this she has observed in her father when she grew up and inherited these qualities, and after getting married she had show these qualities when required, like her father had asked from God and inherited the land what he wanted to possess, similarly she also didn't hesitate to ask the land what she wanted from her father, we should learn to how God fearing people grow in the word of God and inherit and get fulfilled God's promises in their life. Ruth we see her faith in the God of Israel and she does not want to leave her mother-in-law and stay back in moab, by her faith later days she was blessed by God and the Lord the saviour came from her, Esther who was orphan and spent all childhood in poverty and simple living, became queen by showing faith in God of Israel under a king who is a gentile and she risked her life to save the jews. Others are Mary mother of Jesus who had dared to take the blame to get pregnant before marriage for the sake of mankind salvation. Women who was suffering with the flow of blood, had such faith that just by touching Lords garment's corner edge she got healed. The sinful women who had anointed Jesus with the perfume and wiped His feet with her tears in the process she got her sins washed away for her faith and she is remembered till today, and there are many more Godly women strong in faith. We generally come across more women having greater faith in God who lead their families into salvation, and also are prayer warriors in the churches.

Othniel's character is of courageous, obedient to God and to the leaders. When Caleb offered his daughter in marriage for conquering Kiriath-sepher, Caleb was seeing the courage, obedence and a faithful man who can take care of his daughter and family properly. By this act Caleb was able to narrow down selection of a able his son-in-law easily. When Israel was under Cushan-rishathaim rule for eight years, they cried out to the Lord for help then God has sent Othneil to deliver them and he was appointed as the first Judge for the Israeli nation and to lead them as the spirit of the God was with him.

1. Caleb was boasting about is Just because He was promised to be rewarded for showing faith in the God when others are discouraging, Caleb acknowledges his strength in God to fight the enemy that even at the age of 85 years he has strength of a 40 year old. 2. In the case of Caleb it is not a flaw he is boasting of the grace of God in him that the faithful will be rewarded like this, He boasting of health God has given him, in this whole episode caleb was not boasting about himself but praises God and acknowledges His blessings. 3. Caleb was asking for the hill country of Hebron because as spy He had walked around that place and gathered information about canaanites, He was promised to inherit the land where his feet have been by Moses for showing faith in God and following God wholeheartedly, and to prove he is having good health to fight the enemy and conquer. 4. A true leader can be humble by showing gratitude to God and humbling himself before others without pride. 5. Strong leaders are often tempted to pride, because success brings along pride but one should realise that all that success was possible with Gods Grace. In Joshua's case God Himself promised Joshua 1:5 that no man can stand before him.

1. Wholeheartedly means complete faith in God that he will definitely make them enter the promised land come what may, they trusted in God's commandments and walked accordingly. 2. When Caleb and Joshua with other ten spied, they had complete undoubted faith in God and when they have seen the Giants in that land they did not see their strength but trusted the mighty God's strength which they have been seeing from the time they are in Egypt till now. 3. A leader should never fear, it will make his people timid and walk away from God and doubt God's promises. The fear of God is more important to lead proper life. 4. God was angry on Israelites because He had performed several miracles from Egypt till now but they are still doubting in their faith when ever the problem or enemy is big they are not seeing God's mighty power which they experienced, but wanting to go back to Egypt instead, that's why He had made them wander for 40 years in the wilderness to remove all those who lacked faith but allowed their children to inherit the promised land except Joshua and Caleb.

As Mr. Bob Munger's book My heart Christ's home, I too feel that we should surrender ourselves to Lords will completely so as to permit him to do His will in our lives. For this as quoted every room of our house is sanctified, we also sanctify our complete body and spirit and submit ourselves to him as said in Romans 12:1 zI appeal to you therefore, brothers,1 by the mercies of God, ato present your bodies bas a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.2 2 cDo not be conformed to this world,3but be transformed by dthe renewal of your mind, that by testing you may ediscern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Our ugly things in life must be surrendered, and said in 2 cor 7:1 to bring holiness completion in lies.Earlier we were slaves to our weaknesses and sins of the world and made Satan as our master now because you are cleansed by Christ submit yourselves to Christ and make him your Master. Romans 6:19 says I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For tjust as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members uas slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. The effect on us is according to Titus 2:14 " who gave himself for us to sredeem us from all lawlessness and tto purify for himself ta people for his own possession who are uzealous for good works " we have to change to become pure like Him to stay with Him eternally.

Failing to drive out Canaanites from among st them, the Israelites have committed a grave mistake which in their later life they have realized, when they started influencing them, we can see in Judges and the Kings chapters that when they got married to these women they influenced the Israelite's faith in their God and tilted them to their pagan Idol worshiping, initially the Israelites thought they have kept them as slaves but later the Israelites have become slaves to their customs and Gods, which brought God's wrath in their lives in the later years, in our lives we too should not get carried away by the gentiles living around us by their customs, Gods and their prosperity as said psalms 73: 3-5 3 eFor I was fenvious of the arrogant when I saw the gprosperity of the wicked. 4 For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. 5 They are not in trouble as others are; they are not hstricken like the rest of mankind. The consequences for obeying to the word and commandments of God will definately result in facing dire situations in this world and also losing our place in the eternal kingdom. we have to nip the sin in the bud or else it will consume us. As paul says in 1 cor 15:33 Do not be deceived: z“Bad company ruins good moral. so do not compromise.

God told the Israelites to drive out the canaanites completely and destroy their temples and Gods because if they are not later days they will influence Israelites with their pagan customs and idol worshipping, the short term effect is that they started to occupy their lands slowly again and started to live among them with their pagan customs and beliefs influencing the children of Israel and the long term effects are they later won over the israel in convincing them to give and take daughters and sons, by which the pagan customs have entered the Israeli house hold, the other reason is in the later years they dominated over Israel and took them as slaves, destroyed their temple twice, in the bargain Israel has lost their kingdom and become slaves to the gentiles and pagans. To the present day Christians this is very much relevant because when we live along with the gentiles as out neighbours most are picking the gentile customs and corrupting the practice of worshipping God in new testament era. In this context Jesus said mat 15:9-1, and Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites because they build tombs and garnish them sepulchres of the righteousness. So we are warned to check our customs and traditions should not intercept with our path to the eternal kingdom.

In the battle of the Five Kings God prepared the israelites to fight to protect the Gibeon, they marched in the pitch darkness, 35 km from Gilgal to Gibeon whole night and in the early next morning fought with enemies without any energy loss. Here God has scattered the enemy and killed them by large hail storm in more numbers then Israelites killing with their sword. During the war to win over the entire enemy the day was not sufficient,n when Joshua commands publicly in the God's presence to sun, " O Sun stand still " so that he can win the war. This is how God fulfilled His promise to joshua that He will not face any defeat in all his life. In the same way God is empowering us to fight against Devil with the armour He provides Eph 6:11-13. Then we can win battles in life which are never won by others,that's how our testimony will be.

Joshua has failed in the process of waging war against Ai, with underestimating the enemy and not consulting the God Joshua had taken his own decision and in the process miserably failed and humbled by enemy by taking a retreat. Here God wants the israelis to know that before doing anything they are supposed to consult Him, for that reason God had humbled them before the small nation of Ai, or else in future they will keep repeating the same. It is important in our lives to consult God and find out His will in any work we do either big or small, as shown by our Lord Jesus Christ, He consulted God, for example before starting his ministry and choosing disciples. He has done 40 days fasting prayers Mat 4:2. He had served five loves and two small fish to 5000 men by praying Mat 14:19 and before crucifixion prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane and consulting God for the act of salvation, Mat 26:39. It also implies for us also to consult God before taking any major decision in our lives by doing so God will guide in the right direction and there will sure success and victory in our lives.

a. It means unjust use of His holy name in vein to justify our actions when others don't believe, our Lord has commanded that when we say something it should be truth and you should speak or say something it should be like if it yes it should be and if it is not it should be, let them believe it or not dont take oath in the Lord's name to prove yourselves in front of others. b. We are tempted to do this to prove ourselves in front of others as righteous, in most cases people do wrong things and try to take pledge in the name of the God to salvage themselves from the situation. c. We tend to take our promises lightly because of lack of spiritual knowledge fear of Lord, If give promise to someone come what may we have to keep it otherwise we may invite God's wrath in our lives, like in Acts we find Ananias and Sipphira were punished for Acts 5:4-10. d. God's character is unblemished pure, Holy the one who never lies like humans, and who keeps his promises what comes my at the right appointed time according to Him, like if see in Abraham's life God promised his a son at the age of 75 at at the age of 100 He had fulfilled it, unlike us we neither keep our promises or tend to forget as it is convenient to us. Keeping our promises to fulfil in doing God's work and doing it according to His Will is the need of the hour in our lives to attain eternal Kingdom.

Greed has no class both rich and poor suffer from it the poor thinks he has nothing or less and wants more and the rich keeps accumulating for his luxury and the generations, Abraham was blessed by God as one of the richest person during his time but we find him humble and faithful to God and also in hospitality to strangers who visited him, Abraham has started to give tithe to God through king of Shalom Melkisedek, by doing so he has set an example. As Jesus says where our wealth is our heart, so will distracts us from God on to the worldly things. Lord says if we accumulate wealth here in this world thieves will steal and the moth may eat away but accumulate one wealth in the Gods kingdom where there are no thieves nor Moth. How do we do this is by giving for service and spread of Gospel and also by giving it to poor and needy, orphans and destitutes etc, Our greed will effect our giving not only to churches but ever the concept of giving and sharing with others because greet always has selfishness to self position. We should understand that by giving to God is who is the provider in fact he will bless our hands and everything by many folds in Malachi 3:10 God says " I will open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room to receive it. " Not only Americans most nations and people are filled with greed and are captivated by it as prisoners who are not able to come out of this bondage, one should ask for knowledge from God to understand his word and to obey because if we are busy accumulating wealth here in this world we will miss the place in the eternal kingdom which is built with only Gold and precious stones. Rev 21:18 " And the building of the wall of it of was Jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. " It is important for the christians to free themselves from all forms of greed which will not lead us to eternal kingdom, when we repent and pledge ourselves to live as Christ has shown us, we can overcome the greed. Because one cannot serve two masters at the same time, God and the devil.

The sin of one person definitely can effect the whole country for example a bad ruler can destroy the progress, economy and lives of the whole nation, similarly the head ofa family who is sinful will bring curses on his whole family and make them suffer, like a drunken father, a quarrelsome mother.etc, Regarding dealing with sin in the congregation is a tricky thing in the present day churches because the individual sins are hidden and to be confessed by themselves and the sins which are committed in the church operations are not questioned mostly because it brings splits in the churches so it goes unnoticed, but one cannot hide anything from God and what God does to those people and churches depends on Gods mercy. If we take judgemental attitude against sins we commit and judge ourselves and ask for mercy and forgiveness from God, He will definitely forgive us, without judgemental attitude we cannot correct ourselves, because unless we do judgmental to our actions we cannot correct ourselves under the sight of God. Its very important to confess sins of families, individuals, nations and churches on the whole because by confession we accept that we are sinners and seek forgiveness from God and in the process we are supposed to forgive others who sinned against us. And by confession of our sins we feel relieved about our sins being forgiven and get encouraged to lead a Holy life.

God ordered the slaughter of all the people in Jericho because these people are Idol worshipers and if they are made to live, later days they may corrupt the Israelis with sinful customs and their other gods. Here in 1 cor 6:19-20, Our heart are the temple of God and we are supposed to glorify God with our bodies. We are made to glorify God in what ever we do every day by carrying our cross i.e, by bearing shame, fear, famine, lack of clothing hunger for the sake of Christ and the spread of Gospel. We should not spoil and make our body unclean because the Holy spirit lives inside it, otherwise it will leave us. We are always reminded to lead and live holy life because to live with holy God one should be Holy in all aspects including body.

The seven days of marching with the ark indicates firstly the number seven indicates the wholeness and complete perfection. Secondly the ark indicates the presence of God with them who is walking with them in front and leading them to win battles and situations which are humanly impossible to overcome. The mechanism God has used to make walls fall is Faith and Trust in God who is leading them to the promised land, God is making them to go through all the physically activity mental preparedness, and by blowing the horns during the war indicates that the war has started, by such multitude of Israelite's walking abound the Jericho the people inside we made feel timid and loose hope, but the Israelis were made stronger in faith, God wants them to understand and have faith in Him by making them go through this process and to show them He is the only God and all Powerful and nothing is impossible to Him. God will help and do wonders and miracles in the peoples lives who believe and trust in Him and walk His ways at the same time destroy who goes the evil way.

Q2. When the Commander of God's Armies is with me and fights the battles for what more on can expect in ones life than that but is not easy for the Lord of Host's to simply come and fight our battles for this we are supposed to do and live like how Joshua i.e, have extreme faith in Him, live by following his commandments righteously and set example for others God shall come down to help us. And when we leave our battles be fought by God There is no doubt nor second thought about victory, but should try to win not the earthly materialistic battles but win battles here to enter the eternal life as said in Col 3:1 seek those things that are above. My Job is simply lead a faithful life in all situations courageously.

a. Joshua question to the unknown warrior to know who is He, Because Joshua is supposed to lead the Israelites to the promised land safely so he himself being a warrior questions the Him or you fighting for us or against us. b. He is God Himself manifested, to fight the war for the chosen people, to fight a winning war. c. He is on nobody's side, our lord on the righteous people's side, that is all those who seek Him. d. I am on the Lord's side as said in the Rev 3:16 If we are on Lord's side He will spue us out of His presence. e. It such an honor and sudden surprise for us to have encountered Him (God) because that is for what we are waiting all our life, and if it happens we should learn to humble ourselves by showing our gratitude to him by removing our shoes or kneeling down or bowing down raising our hands to heaven etc, because He is Holy, almighty, King of Kings and Lord of Lords and our ultimate savior of Life and the one who will give eternal life. f. We are all unholy, wicked,cunning, sinful and always evil at heart, we should learn to humble our self, remove our pride and submit ourselves to His will to work in our lives so that it will manifest into greater graceful acts of Gods that works to fulfill in our lives.

Manna ceases - After the Israelite's had celebrated the first Passover in the promised land the Manna stopped, because they no longer require it, in the wilderness it was difficult for them sow seeds and harvest crops as they were travelling for 40 years, so God gave them daily manna and fed them and now when they entered the promised land to begin with they are eating the crops which they did now sow and staying in the houses which they did not build. So God knows when we are in a situation where we are unable to seek God's help and he will definitely provide for all our needs if they are required, but once we become self sufficient by his blessings we are supposed to plough the field sow the seeds and harvest the crop by sweating out. Don't take it for granted that Gods blessings are free for ever. Now we should be in stage to sow the seeds of manna in the place where we live and see that others are blessed with the seed of Gospel manna. Our lord is God of miracles and surprises he will bless us abundantly when we follow his word and live by it, then every day it is surprise for us because we know how to live in hard times because he prepares us for both.

Here Joshua told tribes to put 12 memorial stone representing all the twelve tribes of Israel, signifying the miracle God has performed in their lives that is corssing over river Jordan, so that the later generations when they see this they should glorify God work in their lives. In present days monuments and memorial stones have become self praise and glorification for the people themselves and not to God, like the list of doners names on the stone outside the newly constructed Church. In this regard when peter and other disciples were marveling about the church build during king Herods time with Jesus, " Look at these stones look at this temple how marvelously it is built " then Jesus said you are marveling these structures built by stones, there comes a day when no stone will stay one on top of the other ( it will fall ) but the son of God will build it in three days. see Mark 13:2 we are forgetting to glorify God but we are glorifying the constructions build by men and becoming idolaters which God hates according to the first commandment he has given us. So monuments of the past should strengthen out faith but not become idols for us ignoring God.

Joshua was able to announce the miracle of Jordan stopping its flow of water like a wall because he has followed Gods words and instructions on what should be done and how it should be done, he had complete faith on God, as God promised to him that He will magnify him as He has done to Moses, with this confidence in Gods promise he commanded the priests and the people of Israel to cross over the river Jordan. It requires a great amount of faith in God to do such a miraculous event, in our lives also when we are in hurry to possess something which appears so close, but there will be hurdles like the troubled waters of Jordan which we should cross patiently with faith and prayers, then there will not be anything that we we fall short of receiving when we trust God and do according to his will and proceed. God as He promised Joshua that he will magnify him as He magnified mosses, He did the same to Joshua by helping him perform similar miracle as crossing the red sea by mosses, and here crossing over the river Jordan. Here the people who crossed the red sea that is their grandfathers and fathers are not alive, so by repeating a similar miracle to the present generation God has shown His sovereign power and proved that what He promises He will definitely fulfill. As a leader God has elevated Joshua all the days he lived as He has done with mosses in front of Israelites.

Israelites need to consecrate themselves before entering the promised land that is what God wants them to do because they should know that when something they have to possess with the Gods grace they are supposed to sanctify themselves in holiness because to receive something from the Holy God one should be holy, and this is what God wants us to learn from day one. Example Consecrating Church, House, Service items which are used in church.. We should be clean in heart and spirit before God this is what God wants us to learn before doing anything. And about myself I am learning the importance of consecrating to God in submitting myself to Lord in all the walks of my lifewith the Holy sprite's guidance. I need to meditate more on the read scriptures and learn to lead a more prayerful live, trying to live a more holy life in the God's sight and learn to watch and wait to hear to Gods silent words when he speaks.