“Achan replied, ‘It is true!  I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel.  This is what I have done: When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighting fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them.  They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

We make value judgments all the time, don’t we?  Do I want to pick up those extra hours at work or have more free time?  Is it more important to me to spend my money on this thing or to save it?  Generally, what we want the most is what is most valuable to us and for whatever it is we value, we’ll be willing to sacrifice most things in order to get it.

Achan valued most having some gold, silver, and a beautiful robe.  In fact, he valued it so much that he was willing to sacrifice some things to have it: his honesty, his integrity, his trustworthiness, but far more importantly, his relationship with God.  Having that gold and silver was more important to him than God.

It’s an all too familiar picture, isn’t it?  When work or a bigger paycheck becomes more valuable to us, we sacrifice worshiping God or time spent in His Word.  When our hobbies and interests become more important to us, we sacrifice our relationships with our spouse or our family.  When having that earthly thing becomes more important to us than anything else, we sacrifice our relationship with God.  If our relationship with God was up to us and our faithfulness, we’d certainly be lost.

But it isn’t.  God values, strongly desires, covets something too.  In fact, what He covets is what’s most valuable to Him and what He was willing to sacrifice the most for.  What does God value?  He values salvation of us humans most highly!  And what did He sacrifice?  His one and only Son on the cross to wash you and me clean of all our sins, including our broken value system and our coveting of things of this world!

Why?  To win us as His very own children.  To move us by His love to see Him as most important for our lives for time and eternity.

Treasuring my God and Savior, just like you,

pastor