Choose This Day

Choose This Day

Joshua said these words at the end of his life — having led Israel through the conquest of Canaan, having been faithful through forty years of wilderness with Moses, having finished his assignment. His final act of leadership was a summoning of all Israel for a covenant renewal ceremony and a challenge: choose today whom you will serve. The people could have given a diplomatic non-answer. Instead, moved by his example, they responded: 'We too will serve the LORD.' The public declaration by the leader created the conditions for the community's response. Every generation needs someone to say it first. Joshua said it at the end of his life with as much force as at the beginning.

Joshua's declaration in 24:15 is the most famous personal commitment statement in the Old Testament. 'As for me and my household' — this is not a casual preference or a cultural inheritance; it is a deliberate, covenantal choice made with full awareness of alternatives ('if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve'). The choice is genuine: other gods exist, other loyalties are available. But the choice has been made: the LORD, and no one else. June ends with this invitation to make the same declaration: not inherited religion, not cultural Christianity, but a deliberate, renewed commitment. As for me. As for my household. We will serve the LORD.