<\/p>\n
Achan answered Joshua and said, \u201cTruly, I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel.\u201d –Joshua 7:20<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Israelites experienced a resounding victory at Jericho. So when they were crushed at Ai, Joshua couldn\u2019t believe it. He cried out to the Lord, and God explained: \u201cIsrael has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. . . . Therefore the sons of Israel cannot stand before their enemies\u201d (Joshua 7:11\u201312). Remember, a man named Achan had disobeyed God by taking some of the plunder from Jericho for himself. Achan\u2019s sin brought defeat to the entire nation. When his sin was found out, he said, \u201cTruly, I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I did: when I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted them and took them; and behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath it\u201d (vv. 20\u201321). Notice how Achan described the progression of his sin:\u00a0\u201cI saw.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Sin always begins with the eyes. Now, seeing and admiring something of beauty is not in and of itself a sin. But we get into trouble when we fixate on what we see.\u00a0\u201cI coveted them.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0To covet means to desire something that is outside of God\u2019s will for you, whether it is wrong under any circumstances or simply wrong for you right now.\u00a0\u201cAnd took them.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0If you meditate on something that is outside of God\u2019s will for you, eventually you\u2019re going to act on that desire. Wrong thinking leads to wrong action.\u00a0\u201cThey are concealed.\u201d<\/em> We all inherited from Adam and Eve the urge to try to hide our sin from God. But as long as we conceal our sin, we can\u2019t heal from our sin by receiving His forgiveness. To Achan\u2019s credit, he eventually named and claimed his sin. You cannot truly repent until you see your sin the way God sees it and call it what God calls it. Adultery is not merely \u201ca lapse in judgment.\u201d Addiction is not \u201coverdependence.\u201d Lying is not \u201cstretching the truth.\u201d To receive God\u2019s forgiveness, you must agree with Him about your sin, just as Achan did. (Jeffress)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Achan answered Joshua and said, \u201cTruly, I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel.\u201d –Joshua 7:20 The Israelites experienced a resounding victory at Jericho. So when they were crushed at Ai, Joshua couldn\u2019t believe it. He cried out to the Lord, and God explained: \u201cIsrael has sinned, and they have also transgressed … Continue reading “67.u. Joshua 7:20”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199755"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199758,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199755\/revisions\/199758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}