Walls Must Fall: Day: 11: Guarding the Divine Promise: Overcoming Temptation and Disobedience

0:00 Music. Welcome to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast with your host, Connie Morris, where healing has a voice and truth is no longer silent. Father God, like Jabez, we cry out that thou would bless us indeed. Bless every woman listening beyond trauma, beyond limits, beyond what she thought was possible. Enlarge her territory. Expand her purpose. Let your hand be upon this moment. Saturate every word with oil and truth. break cycles, cancel every curse sent to silence her. This isn't just a podcast.

0:49 This is holy ground. In Jesus' name, amen. Hello, and welcome back to Diary of a Black Woman podcast, and I'm your host, Connie Morris, and today we are on day 11 of our Walls Must Fall 12-day devotional series of consecration and dedication. Today's topic is guard what God gave you, protect the promise. I hope you are enjoying these episodes. They have been so powerful to me, I tell you. And so our two foundational scriptures today are coming from Joshua 6, Proverbs 4, and then I'm going to be reading from Joshua 7.

1:34 So let's start with Joshua 6 verse 18. It says, but keep away from the devoted things so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. I want you to pay attention to what Joshua was saying here. It says, but keep away from the devoted things so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. So he's already giving you heads up that don't you be hoarding anything. Don't you be like having no other God before God, because that will bring you destruction. Proverbs 4, 23 reads, above all else, guard your heart and for everything you do flows from it.

2:18 And we know that to be true. So let's talk about it. We see victory came quickly, but so did temptation. After Jericho fell, God gave clear instructions. Don't take the devoted things. Do not defile what's sacred. Yet in Joshua 7, one man's compromise, Achan's disobedience, brought defeat to the entire nation. Let's see what Achan did. Let's go to Joshua 7. I'm going to start off. You got to read the whole chapter because Joshua was not having it. Joshua was, the Israelites were sent to war. They got, God sent them to war. They got defeated.

3:02 And Joshua was a winning type of guy. He was wondering what was going on. And then the Lord told him there is sin in the camp. And he said, who? Sinning in the camp. After we'd have had this great victory in Joshua 6, now in Joshua 7, we got somebody sinning in the camp. Who is he? Take a sip of water real quick because I'm about to get this going. And so you pick it up in Joshua 7 verse 19. Joshua spoke to Achan. It was Achan, my son, give glory to God, the God of Israel. Make your confession to him. Tell me what you did. Don't keep back anything from me. So Joshua called him out.

3:45 Achan answered, Joshua, it's true. I sinned against God, the God of Israel. This is how I did it. In the plunder, I spotted a beautiful shenan robe. 200 shekels of silver and 50 shekels bar of gold, and I coveted and took them. They are buried in my tent with the silver at the bottom. Okay, let's just kind of back this up a bit. Please understand that when the Israelites left, they left with silver and gold, so they don't want for anything in the wilderness. Okay. Understand that. But Achan thought it was like good for him to covet. Let's see what he coveted. Why? I think this is powerful, especially for us ladies that he coveted and he said it. Look how he described it.

4:33 Come on now. He still coveted it while he's describing it to telling Joshua. He didn't say, I just grabbed a robe and some gold and some things. No, look how he described it. It's in the message. Joshua 7 in the message describes it. I plunder. In the plunder, I spotted a beautiful Shinaro. 200 shekels of silver and 50 shekel bar of gold, and I covered it, and I took them. They are buried in my tent at silver and the silver at the bottom. Joshua sent off messengers. They ran to the tent, and there it was, buried in a tent with the silver at the bottom. Just like he said, they took the stuff from the tent and brought it to Joshua and to all the people of Israel and spread it out before God.

5:21 So he said, Lord, look, you told me who it was. I discovered the evidence of what it was. And look what happened. Joshua took Achan, the son of Zerah, took the silver, the robe, the gold bar, and his sons and daughters, his ox, his donkey. Sheep and tent, and everything connected with him. All Israel was there. They led them off to the valley of Acre, which means trouble valley. Joshua said, why have you troubled us? God will now trouble you today. God will trouble you today.

6:01 And all of Israel stoned him, burned him with fire, stoned him with stones. They piled a huge pile of stones over him. It is still there. Only then did God turn from his hot anger. that that's how the place came to be called Trouble Valley right up to this present time. We see here that there was sin in the camp. We see that God was angry and it's like God was pointing down on heaven and said, it's him. Joshua said, who was it? It's him. It's him right there. But in Joshua 6, 18, which we read first, it says, but keep away from all the devoted things so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. But yet.

6:48 His only job was not to take any of them. But for some reason, he thought God had changed his mind or turned away. And we see here that Achan died. Not just Achan. They took his family, his donkey. Let's see. He didn't leave nothing. It says Joshua took Achan, son of Zerah, took the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and his daughters, his ox, his donkey, his sheep. And 10, everything connected to him and stoned him. Was it worth it? I don't think so. We got to realize that our sin is connected to our family.

7:30 His irresponsibility, his disobedience to the commandments of God got his whole family killed. Every breakthrough, every healing, every new door comes with responsibility and stewardship. God is reminding you today, what he gave you must be guarded. The enemy may not be able to rebuild the wall. Still, he may try to slip through the cracks of your distraction, your disobedience, or compromise. It is not just about gaining victory. It's about maintaining it. Guard your heart, guard your habits, guard your home. You've come too far to lose ground.

8:13 You come too far to even lose your life over some stuff. You see, it was stuff. It was just material stuff. And even when he was describing it, he said it was a beautiful robe as though Joshua might change his mind or God might change his mind. He said no. And when no means no, no means no. You know, one thing that always ring a bell to me, and you'll remember this, you always have a person who decides to go do something great, right? They do something really powerfully great. And then they might pull out of, like say for them, they might pull out of the gang and then they pull out the gang and then something happens where they get killed.

8:59 He was getting out of this. He was getting out of that. But some of that leads to us not, we talked about that in one of the episodes, not like burning those bridges. But this one is that sin of disobedience. It was this direct disobedience. God told him no, and he went anyway. And many times we don't know the story of the person who died. And a lot of things are happening in the world today. We don't even know the story. I'm just kind of pausing because this is so amazing to me how the Bible just keeps it so real. And we just have to, this title of this story, this title of this devotion should be When God says no, he means no. When he says don't touch it, he means don't touch it. And so you have to guard your heart. Let's pray.

9:42 Father, help me protect what you've entrusted me. Expose every hidden thing that could sabotage my breakthrough. Remove the desires to return to old habits. Strengthen me to live in holiness and wisdom. I won't just walk into victory. I will walk into integrity. Let's decree. I decree that I will guard my gates. I will not allow sin, compromise, or distraction to rob me of what God has given me. I am covered by the blood of Jesus. What God has blessed, no man can curse. I will protect the promise. 1 Peter 5a tells us to be alert and sober mind.

10:22 Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion. He prowls around like a roaring lion, but he can't touch you in your obedience. But he can tear you up. Remember, he has a roaring lion, so he's faking it. But he's dangerous still. He's dangerous. Because when you're disobedient, look what happened. His own people had to kill him. Took him out. His sons and his daughters died because of this Achan's disobedience. I'm still having a moment here. Let's keep going. So how are we going to maintain this guarding of what God has given us and during our fasting focus? I want you to really think about that because this man did not have to die, but he did.

11:09 Not just him, his family and everything that was connected to him. That wasn't the first time that happened. We can go to number 16 about Korah and his family and his crew die. But let's talk about the fasting focus. Fast with intentional vigilance. Vigilance is being alert. Reflect on the areas that are most vulnerable to after a spiritual victory. Just like you get a super victory and then you kind of let your guards down as though that's it for the day. The victories are, they happen fast, but you still got to buckle back up, get ready.

11:52 Because if you don't, he's going to hit you in that spot that you forgot to cover. Recommit to daily discipline. Like, yes, you won. The victory is yours, but we are not in heaven yet. We're still in a war zone. We're still in a war zone, y'all. Recommend to daily disciplines, prayer, words, worship, and healthy boundaries. So you still have to maintain your workout plan, your spiritual workout plan, your emotional workout plan, your obedience workout plan. You have to keep your spiritual atmosphere strong around you. Put on your armor. You have to stay focused. Something to journal.

12:33 Where have I been careless in my time, my thoughts, or behavior since my breakthrough? Because Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. You think he's going to let you just keep, you can victory and jump around, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what? Snatch and you lose it. So he says, stay on guard. He says, guard what God has given you. And last journal prompt is. What boundaries do I need to reinforce to stay in line with God's promises? You have to remember you're always in a war. As long as you're breathing on this earth, we are in a war. You might not see it, but you're in it. And so, yes, you're going to have victories. You're going to have victories because God is a winner.

13:13 But yep, but Satan is a stealer, killer, and destroyer. So you're going to win some. I ain't going to say you're going to lose some, but you can lose some if you're not paying attention to your victories, amen? So I wanna, hey, I want you to leave you with this one. Guard what God has given you. I want you to protect the promise. Until next time, I'll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to this episode. And before we close out, I wanna speak a word of promise over you from Jeremiah 29, 11 through 14. Father God, you declared, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

13:59 So today we receive that truth. You said when we call on you, you will listen. So we pray. You said that when we seek you with our hearts, you will be found. So we pursue. You said you will restore us from captivity. So we declare freedom over every place where our listeners feel stuck, silenced, or small. Thank you for always drawing near when we show up in faith. In Jesus' name, amen. Music.