Year 6, Day 262: Zechariah 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Challenge

• Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are.  He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.

Joshua is the priest at the time of Zerubbabel and the return from exile.  When we open up Zechariah 3, we see Joshua standing before the altar, going through the service that would be required of him.  We also see Satan – one of the few appearances of Satan in the Bible – come before Joshua and accuse him of sinfulness.  This is the way of life.  We as human beings cannot live perfectly.  We will always be guilty before those who desire to accuse us of sinfulness.  There is nothing that we can do except to realize that we are guilty and to acknowledge it.

You will notice that God seems to be okay with the fact that Joshua isn’t perfect.  God doesn’t hear Satan, agree that Satan is right, and then reject Joshua as priest.  Instead, God turns to Joshua and offers Him challenge.  God turns to Joshua and tells him that He has taken away his iniquity.  He then challenges Joshua to live righteously and uphold God’s ways before the people.

This is how it is with God.  He knows our sinfulness.  He knows our hearts.  He knows that we cannot be righteous on our own.  Therefore, He proclaims us righteous and then offers us challenge.  He acknowledges our condition and then asks us to live better with His help than we truly are capable of living on our own.

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