From Joshua 5:13: Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
A colleague was talking to me yesterday about what she was going to do for the New Year. She was a Catholic, and said she was going to participate in the Catholic rituals in the New Year. Among these, she mentioned that they “ask for the blessings” from God for the new year.
That brought to my mind the “me me me” mentality of all people, including Christians. They participate in this or that so that they themselves will be blessed personally by God, as if God is their personal manservant, or fairy godmother. As Mark Driscoll puts it, we think that God is the piñata, prayer is the stick, and if you whack God hard enough all the goodies will come out. Too often we demand God to bless US in our selfish glory, and forget that the world is much bigger than us.
And then this morning I read this passage. And it really hit me.
Joshua was asking the angel (he didn’t know at the time that he was an angel) whether he was for the Israelites or against them, whether he was someone fighting for them or against them. And the very interesting thing was that he said he was NEITHER. At first, one might be puzzled, because if you consider that the angel was God’s servant, and if God was fighting for the Israelites, then wouldn’t the angel be fighting FOR the Israelites?
But you need to understand that God isn’t fighting FOR the Israelites. He is not under the Israelites jurisdiction. God is fighting for His glory alone. Through His power shown through the Israelites, He would be glorified; but it’s not as if the Israelites have “summoned” God as one would summon a demon to fight for oneself in a fantasy RPG. GOD makes the terms, not the Israelites.
So the angel is not there to serve the Israelites, but to serve God. Yes, the Israelites will be blessed by the angel’s actions. But ultimately, it is all for the purpose of God’s glory ALONE.
When you pray, how do you pray? Do you pray that God will bless you and the ones you love? Do you ask him to pick up your mess for you and to make everything go alright for you so that life will be smooth for you? If that is you, then you need to rethink how you pray. You are not God; He is. To God ALONE be all the glory.
“Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You ALONE are the LORD. “ (Nehemiah 9:5b-6a)
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