Joshua 6: How God Uses Fame

“So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.” -Joshua 6:27

After Joshua and the Israelites defeated Jericho, the episode ends with, “So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.” This summary offers two important spiritual insights, one known and one less known.

First, Joshua’s success was seen as being because the Lord was with him. Psalm 1 and other places throughout Scripture highlight this important trait that reveals success is from God. We don’t earn it ourselves, regardless of how hard we work. God decides how far we go and when. He “directs our steps.”

Second, the result of God working through Joshua was that his “fame spread throughout the land.” We rarely consider that God sometimes gives a person fame, popularity, or notoriety. When he chooses someone, he may choose to place them in a special place in a society as an example of his power working through a person. We can easily think of Christians today who have attained celebrity status in sports, music, or media, but God often raises up individuals in smaller circles of influence as leaders. From the family level to a local church to a local charity or local community, God uses his people in a variety of roles to make a difference in his name.

How do we become this person? There is no magic formula. God calls us to serve him, to love him with all our heart, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. As we do, he may choose to use us in unexpected ways. Just remember that if he does so in your life, it’s not because of what you have done. It is the Lord who spreads a person’s fame throughout the land.

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Dillon Burroughs is the author and coauthor of numerous books and is handwriting a copy of all 31,173 verses of the Bible at HolyWritProject.com. Find out more about Dillon at Facebook.com/readdB or readdB.com.