Words of Grace – Nov. 19, 2015

Joshua took over the leadership of Israel when Moses died. He was the man who led the Israelites into the Promised Land.

The inhabitants of Gibeon heard about Joshua and his army and decided to make a league with them. When Joshua asked them where they had come from and why they had come, they answered:

“From a very far country your servants have come because of the name of the Lord your God: for we have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Egypt” (Joshua 9:9).

The Gibeonites had come because of the Lord’s “name” and the Lord’s “fame.” To be famous means to make a name for oneself. Joshua never sought fame for himself. He wanted all the glory to go to God.

And so it was with the Lord Jesus. As he went from place to place, teaching and preaching and healing, “his fame went throughout all Syria” (Matthew 4:23, 24). Jesus never sought to be famous:

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7,8).