I have a confession to make: I love church! The day I became a follower of Jesus Christ, it became my passion and I’m still obsessed! Of course, when I say ‘church’, I don’t mean the architecture, I mean the people. Sometimes loving people can be challenging; in our increasingly polarized communities, we will regularly come across people with completely different experiences and views of life, and the temptation can be to shy away and limit our interaction to those we feel safe and secure around.
Every time I read the gospels, I see Jesus interacting in challenging situations, yet he wholeheartedly ‘loved his neighbour as himself’. We cannot love at a distance; we cannot demonstrate our faith without works and we won’t grow in love or faith without allowing ourselves to be stretched or challenged! Acting upon a challenge is not always easy.
This Sunday, in our series ‘journeying with Joshua’, we will finally see the Israelites embracing the instruction to cross over the River Jordan (Joshua 3). It is an incredibly significant act, as God’s people venture from the desert wilderness to the promised land. The Israelites had to make the transition to embrace their destiny. Something needed to change; they finally realised it and moved forward!