Week 22

A God Who Changes Lives Joshua 2:1-14 A harlot, whose name was Rahab.  It is amazing to me how God works.  He took a person who was totally rejected and looked down upon by everyone else and used her in a mighty way.  Through her simple faith in the God of the Israelites, Rahab is able to save the spies from the soldiers, and preserve her family from judgment.  God often chooses the lowliest and the despised to be His catalyst of change in the world. Too many Christians, though, get caught up in their past lives, how wretched they were and how sinful they acted.  And it becomes nothing but an excuse for them today to not do and be what God wants them to do and to be.  You might be thinking, “But what I did; the way I acted… God could never forgive me for something like that.”  Was it worse than living as a prostitute in the detestable, pagan land of Canaan?  I don’t think so.  But even if it was, God is not concerned about your past.  Believe me, He knows every bit of it, and He’s not preoccupied with what you did and how you lived.  So why are you?  He wants to know why you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing today.  He took a prostitute and brought about salvation and a changed life.  He can do the same with you.  Do you know how I know God works this way?  Because He changed me!  My life was the result of a sin.  I am an illegitimate child; my mother never married.  As a fatherless child growing up in the South, I was looked down upon and despised.  But praise God for what He has done in my life!  God can take the worst raw materials and craft them into a life that is honoring to Him, and use that life to further His purposes in this world.    God is a God of love; Rahab was saved by His grace and mercy -- as are you.  There is more to the story of Rahab.  In Matthew 1, there is an important set of verses, a genealogy of the lineage of Jesus.  Right in the middle of it we read that a man named Salmon married a woman named Rahab.  That’s the same woman we’ve been talking about.  Imagine that, a prostitute in the lineage of Jesus Christ.  Now, that’s a God who can change a life!  So don’t use your past as an excuse for not doing what you need to be doing in your present.  It’s time to move on with Christ and quit holding on to what’s holding you back. Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.  2 Corinthians 5:17