Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God. For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you. (Joshua 23:11-13)
In this passage, Joshua is basically giving his farewell address to the people of Israel. The statement that jumped out to me was Joshua's admonition to the people to love God and to not associate with and cling to the nations in the land and their culture. Joshua went on to say that if the Israelites disobeyed this admonition that God would allow these nations to be a trap and a snare to them and would ultimately lead to their removal from the land.
Applied to our life today, if we compromise, it's only a matter of time that the things we are compromising with will overtake us and weaken or even destroy our relationship with God. How many things are in our life do we "turn back and cling to" rather than continuing to make God our first love? Thankfully, if we are his children we will experience discipline in these areas [Hebrews 12:6] until we learn are lesson and repent. If we continue in our sin, God will give us over to those things and we will have no more hope [Romans 1].
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