Friday, August 1, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Joshua 1-3
Key Verse
Joshua 2:12 — “Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my father’s house, and give me a true token:”
Devotional Thought
Moses is dead, and the whole camp of Israel stands at the edge of the wilderness with a river between them and everything God promised. The man who led them out of Egypt, who stood before Pharaoh and stretched his rod over the Red Sea, is buried in a valley in Moab, and no one knows where. Into that silence the LORD speaks—not to a patriarch or a prophet, but to Joshua, Moses’ minister, the man who had waited in the tent and spied out the land forty years before. “Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan.” The command is not merely to move; it is to trust that God’s promise did not die with Moses. Three times in nine verses God tells him, “Be strong and of a good courage.” Courage is not the absence of the river; it is the presence of the LORD who says, “I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
Then comes Rahab of Jericho, a harlot whose house sits on the town wall. She hides the spies beneath stalks of flax on her roof, lies to the king’s men, and confesses a faith that would shame many in Israel: “The LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.” She binds a scarlet line in her window and gathers her father, mother, brethren, and sisters inside, and that crimson cord becomes the sign of a salvation she could not earn. Her story is stitched into the gospel itself—Matthew names her in the genealogy of Jesus.
At last the people come to Jordan in the harvest season, when the river overflows all its banks. The priests carry the ark before them, and the moment their feet touch the brimming water, the flood stands in a heap far upstream at Adam, and the people cross on dry ground. It is the Red Sea all over again, only this time the waters part at the first step of obedience rather than at the raising of a rod. The priests stand firm in the middle of the riverbed until every soul has passed clean over.
Perhaps this August finds you standing at your own Jordan—a new job, a move, a diagnosis, a grief—with the waters high and no bridge in sight. The word to Joshua is the word to you: sanctify yourselves, follow the ark, and put your feet in the water. God does not part rivers in advance; He parts them at the brim. And the same LORD who was with Moses, and with Joshua, and with a scarlet-corded harlot on a crumbling wall, will be with you whithersoever thou goest.
Reflection
- Where in your life is God asking you to step into the water before it parts—and what would “be strong and of a good courage” look like in that specific place today?
- Rahab’s whole household was saved by a scarlet line she could neither explain nor deserve. Who in your household or circle needs to be brought inside that same token of mercy, and what would it cost you to gather them?
Prayer
O Lord God of heaven above and earth beneath, we confess that we often stand at the river’s edge measuring the flood instead of trusting the One who goes before us. You told Joshua to be strong and of a good courage because You would not fail him nor forsake him; speak that same word to our fearful hearts this day. Sanctify us, we pray, and let us follow where Your ark leads, even into deep water. Remember Your covenant, hold back the flood, and give us dry ground to walk upon. Gather our loved ones within the scarlet line of Your mercy, and bring us all safely into the rest You have promised, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.