On the 34th day of Christmas my true love gave to me a leader with the ultimate guarantee (Joshua 3).

When I was growing up I remember one spiritual leader was always sharp. Her hair was salon groomed, she usually had a French manicure or a splash of red, and she wore St. John suits. And she could bring the word. Some of the women who served under her began to follow her ways. If it weren’t for height, gait and skin tone, you may have mistaken them for her. I think it’s good to have someone as a style barometer if you are having trouble in that area but better than style is spiritual substance. Sometimes we follow style over substance and the substance gets buried.

And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had done for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals.

I have always nodded my head in shame of Joshua and his generation for not passing down their spiritual heritage to the next generation. I assumed that because the next generation didn’t know the Lord that Joshua and his contemporaries failed to teach them. But a further reading in Judges 2 makes it clear that Joshua’s descendents “turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the LORD, and they did not do so” (17). The descendents decided not to follow who Joshua followed. As long as they could see Joshua, they followed him. They never saw beyond Joshua to see the Lord leading him. When Joshua and his contemporaries died, following the Lord died with them.

Like Moses, Joshua was a type of Christ, a historical person illustrating the spiritual truth of Jesus Christ. Joshua came after Moses and went beyond him by leading the children of Israel into the Promised Land. This illustrated how Jesus would come after the Mosaic Law and lead his followers the way to the ultimate promised land—heaven), something the Law couldn’t do. Joshua led the Israelites to defeat many nations and was clear that God enabled him. Somehow the people missed “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Maybe they got caught up in the fanfare of victories or they focused more on the plunder. Whatever the reason they missed the spiritual substance, that God is who they should follow, not a man and what God allows to happen through that man.

God gives us leaders to follow, but when they leave our lives we should still be able to see and follow Jesus. It’s up to us, not our leaders. Let’s choose spiritual substance over style and make spiritual substance our very own.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith