Joshua 2:1 Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

Our character of focus here is Rahab. The prostitute. This is no small detail. While she was living a life that was never meant for her, God still seeks to use us. What we get to experience is that God is always pursuing us, no matter our state of being. We are never too far gone.

God is everywhere. Thus, He does not have to move. When we don’t feel Him it’s because we have stepped back.

1 John 4:9-10 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God is pursuing us for a relationship. Just as a parent does with a child or a friends do or as we seek to date and marry. God is holding His arms out waiting for us to pursue our relationship with Him in an even greater way than we do for these relationships.

We need blocked time with God. This helps us. This is how we build our relationship. As our relationship grows He invites us deeper into His work. What often ends up happening is that we like to invite God into our work. That’s backwards

Joshua 2:2-4 The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.” But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from.

Rahab lied for the spies. Her faith is in the Egyptian freed slaves.

The number one way God speaks to us is through the Holy Spirit when we read His word. Most Christians are educated beyond their obedience. Meaning that many of us consume His word, but we don’t practice, use and apply it to our everyday lives. We can take note of our circumstance and know that when they don’t line up with His word it is not from Him.

John 5:17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”

When we aim to get involved with God’s work it will always challenge our faith.

Joshua 2:17-20 Now the men had said to her, “This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. If any of them go outside your house into the street, their blood will be on their own heads; we will not be responsible. As for those who are in the house with you, their blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on them. But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear.”

No matter the situation we are in, good or bad, we can get comfortable. Comfortable is dangerous. Comfort convinces us that everything outside of our circumstances is worse and then we are blind to anything else that is for us. Following God takes both faith and action.

Joshua 2:21 “Agreed,” she replied. “Let it be as you say.” So she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

God gives us enough right where we are at to take another step. Working with God always requires faith. Faith is trusting that He is making a way even though we cannot see it.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Much of our difficulty with faith is that we don’t like obedience. We don’t want God to tell us what to do, we just want some advice. When we don’t want to obey we have a love problem not an obedience problem. We have fallen out of love with God. Obedience is the single greatest representation of faith.

Joshua 6:25 But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.

While we can see that through Rahab’s obedience her life and the lives of her family were spared so much more came from her obedience. In Matthew 1:5 we can see the fullness of what God intended for her.

Matthew 1:5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,
Rahab is in the lineage of Christ.

He wants us to understand that no one is too far from Him. God blesses us in a multiplying fashion.

John 14:23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

Preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. If the people around us know God, anything is possible. If they know only us, that changes nothing.