Joshua 2 Devotional

Faith from Outside the Walls

“When we heard this, our hearts melted and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.”Joshua 2:11 (BSB)

The spies sent into Jericho end up in the house of a prostitute named Rahab, and the story turns on her. She hides them on her roof, sends the king's men down the wrong road, and then says something no one in Israel has yet said in this book. She has heard what the LORD did at the Red Sea and to Sihon and Og, and she concludes that Israel's God rules in heaven above and on the earth below (2:9-11).

Her faith is not polished. Her story includes a lie, and she bargains for her family's lives (2:4-5, 12-13). But she turns toward the LORD, and the scarlet cord in her window marks a household that will be spared (2:18, 21). The God of this chapter opens his mercy to an outsider who has nothing to bring but trust. Matthew later names Rahab in the family line of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). Your past does not place you beyond the reach of that same mercy.

To think about: What in your past makes you feel like an outsider to God, and what does his welcome of Rahab say to that?