When Joshua was near the town of Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and demanded, “Are you friend or foe?” “Neither one,” he replied. “I am the commander of the Lord’s army.” At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence. “I am at your command,” Joshua said. “What do you want your servant to do?” The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did as he was told. (Joshua 5:13-15)I was reading the other day about WWJB: Who Would Jesus Bomb? Both sides of the war issue were using the Bible to try to support their viewpoint.
In the Civil War, both sides felt God was on their side, and both sides used scripture to bolster their ideas. Both were wrong.
The vegetarians, the green people, the lovers of alternative fuel – all feel God is on their side. The opinion of these is that if Jesus were here today, he would agree with them and do like they think.
The problem is that basically, God doesn’t care what our viewpoint is. He is not subject to our whims and our wishes. He does not go along with our ideas and he really doesn’t care how much we are wrapped up in our hobbies.
He is God, and as such is above all that is earthly.
In this passage, Joshua asked the man he saw standing in front of him with a sword in his hand, are you friend or foe? The man replied, neither one.
He was neither friend nor foe. He was the commander of the Lord’s army, and as such, he was for the Lord.
When we try to manipulate God into our life, we fail. We are moved into God’s life, or we are not in God.
In fact, the angel of the Lord ignored Joshua’s request completely. All he told him was the ground was holy because the presence of the Lord and his army was here. He could like it or leave it.
Any god we can move into what we want is not a god worth worshiping. Any god we can manipulate into taking our side of a dispute, no matter how noble the dispute, is not a god worth worshiping.
God is greater than our desires, no matter how fervently we may feel them. He does not care about the natural resources, or the fact that we may consider meat abhorrent, or any of the things that we are so passionate about. He is God, the Lord of Hosts, and as such has his own agenda and his own work to do.
There is nothing wrong with having ideas or projects. But when we try to make God take sides, we lessen him, we denigrate him, and reduce him to a supporting shill.
When Jesus was asked about taxes, he said, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.
In other words, God doesn’t care about taxes or stuff like them.
That doesn’t mean God doesn’t care about us, but he will not be our sponsor for clean energy or veganism. He doesn’t care.
He is God.
And we worship him.
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