CLINGING TO THE LORD YOUR GOD

“You are to cling to the Lord your God.” – These were Joshua’s parting words to wayward Israel,

just before his death. (See Joshua 23:8)

CLING :

“To hold fast to something, as by grasping, sticking, embracing, or winding around.”

• As a wet raincoat would CLING to your back.

• As a person on the verge of death would CLING to life.

“To remain attached in thought or practice.”

“To follow close after, pursue hard; to resist separation.”

Jesus put it this way: “If anyone wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up all right to himself…

and keep close behind me.” (Luke 9:23a – Phillips Translation)

CLINGING conveys the sense of desperation: That there is no other viable option.

QUESTION: ARE YOU CLINGING TO CHRIST? Or to:

Your bank account?

Your reputation?

Your capabilities?

SELF-SUFFICIENCY is the arrogant assumption that I can go it alone… without God.

CLINGING is the humble acknowledgment that I must be intimately connected to God

for life to make sense and to be worth living.

In Joshua’s admonition to CLING to God he gives this warning:

“If you ever go back and CLING to the rest of these nations (i.e. the world and its values)… (they)

shall be to you as:

A snare and a trap… A whip on your sides… Thorns in your eyes… until you perish from off this good

land which the Lord your God has given you.” (Joshua 23:12)

QUESTION: Are you CLINGING to Christ? Or do you have it so together that you can go

it alone? If so, are you willing to pay the price of independence?