There is a text found early in the book of Joshua that I found puzzling in the past. After forty years in the wilderness, the second generation of those whom Moses led out of Egypt had finally crossed the Jordon and begun the conquest of the land God had promised to Abraham and his descendants. Their first challenge was the walled city of Jericho. Forty years earlier, the spies that Moses had sent into Canaan has brought back a report that the land was, indeed, fertile and rich but, “the people who live there are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large” (Num. 13:28). Jericho was one of those cities and the first significant test for the Israelites.

On the eve before Israel was to attack Jericho, Joshua encountered an unknown man. The text says, “Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’ ‘Neither,’ he replied, ‘but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.’ Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, ‘What message does my Lord have for his servant?’ The commander of the Lord’s army replied, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.’ And Joshua did so” (Josh.5:13-15)

The puzzling part of this text is the way in which the man who, was the commander of the Lord’s army, answered Joshua. Joshua asked whose side he was on. I expected the angel of the Lord (or possibly Jesus before his incarnation) to say that he was on Israel’s side and had come to assure their victory. However, he did not respond in that way but instead said that he was neither on Israel’s side nor the inhabitants of Jericho. He then simply identified himself as the commander of the Lord’s army. His response seems peculiar but only because of our mindset.

Ultimately, I think this is the point. God doesn’t line up with us, we must line up with him. If we want him to fight for us, our first step is to align ourselves with him. We join him…he doesn’t join us. When we think God is on our side because of our affiliations, we miss the point. Achan was an Israelite, but his sin cost Israel a battle and cost him and his family their lives. Although he was a Hebrew, his misalignment with the Lord caused him to be rejected. Rahab was a prostitute and part of the community who lived in Jericho. However, when she believed God and aligned herself with his promises, she was accepted and she and her family were saved.

God is not particularly interested in our affiliations – whether we attend First Baptist or Mid-Cities or Gateway. He’s not impressed with whose preaching we follow most or to whose praise music we gravitate. He is not even concerned if we are Republican or Democrat, American or Russian, or what neighborhood we live in. What he is concerned about is whether our hearts are aligned with his heart. He doesn’t join us – we are to join him. He doesn’t take up our agenda – we are to take up his. That was the message of the man Joshua encountered that night. God would fight for whoever joined him. It is clear that Joshua took up the Lord’s agenda because there was no other reason to march around Jericho once a day for seven days and then seven times on the last day blowing trumpets and shouting. That makes no earthly sense. But once Israel aligned themselves with God’s will and his ways, victory was assured.

Too often, I expect God to pick up my agenda and my desires and give me the victory that I have planned. The Spirit, however, expects us to adopt the agenda and the desires of God that he reveals to us. Remember, Jesus modeled life for us and he said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (Jn.5:19). When we discover that model, then we will see the power of God at work in our own lives.