Hopeless without Favor

Joshua 7:10-11
10 And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? 11 Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.

Jericho was the first city to be taken as Israel entered into the promised land. Because it was the first, all of the spoils were to go to God. No one was to keep anything. This wasn't an unreasonable request, seeing that God gave the victory to Israel, causing the walls of Jericho to fall flat. After the overwhelming victory, Joshua decided to send some men to Ai to conquer it. It should have been an easy win, but instead, Ai overwhelmed the men of Israel. What went wrong? Israel had failed to give God all of the spoils from Jericho, and God removed His hand of favor that brought them victory over their enemies. After their sin had been made right, Israel went on to defeat Ai with God as their strength. What should we gain from this passage? We can do nothing without Him. We are hopeless and helpless without His favor. God is a God of the first. He still deserves our first and our best, but we often fail to deliver. We are no better than Israel when we try to take credit for what God does in our life, and when we greedily hold onto what is His. If we were living under the same covenant as Israel was, would we consistently live under the favor of God? It is doubtful, but Christ has come as a revelation of God's love for us, and His favor has been placed upon us giving us the victory in every battle that we will face until He returns. Let us give our first to the One who loved us first!