Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there.
Joshua 2:1 New International Version (NIV)
How would you like it if your name was always associated with your worst season?
There’s more grace in God’s heart than there is sin in our past.
Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me. He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. He fills my life with good things.
Psalm 103:2-5a New Living Translation (NLT)
Rahab – Joshua 2
Before they [the spies] went to sleep, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men: “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you. The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below. Now then, since I have dealt kindly with you, swear to me by the Lord that you in turn will deal kindly with my family. Give me a sign of good faith that you will spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” The men said to her, “Our life for yours! If you do not tell this business of ours then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us the land.”
Joshua 2:8-14 (NIV)
God did not define Rahab by her past.
The windshield is always bigger than the rearview mirror.
Then she let them [the spies] down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the outer side of the city wall and she resided within the wall itself. She said to them, “Go toward the hill country, so that the pursuers may not come upon you. Hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers have returned; then afterward you may go your way.” The men said to her, “We will be released from this oath that you have made us swear to you if we invade the land and you do not tie this crimson cord in the window through which you let us down, and you do not gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your family.”
Joshua 2: 15-18 (NIV)
Truly the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear of us.
Joshua 2:24 (NIV)
The Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have handed Jericho over to you, along with its king and soldiers.”
Joshua 6:2 (NIV)
They burned down the city and everything in it; only the silver and gold and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. But Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, Joshua spared. Her family has lived in Israel ever since. For she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.
Joshua 6:24-25 (NIV)
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.
Matthew 1:1-6 (NIV)
So what about you?
Are you going to let the past define you?
Are you defined by your worst season?
Do you look at life through the rear-view mirror?