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After Jericho’s walls fell, Israel should have been moving from victory to victory. But at Ai, they were defeated—not because the enemy was stronger, but because sin was hidden in the camp.

In this urgent message, Dr. Michael Youssef teaches from Joshua 7, exposing the danger of tolerated sin. Achan’s disobedience shows that carelessness leads to calamity, and presuming on grace invites judgment. God’s Word is clear: sin must be exposed, confessed, and removed.

Yet even failure is not the end when repentance is real. God can turn defeat into a door of hope when His people humble themselves, return to Him, and walk in obedience.

This episode calls believers to:

Christ calls His people to be holy, surrendered, and faithful. Hidden sin weakens witness—but repentance restores the path to victory.

Scripture Focus: Joshua 7:1-15

 If today’s teaching stirred a question, burden, or need for prayer, you don’t have to walk through it alone. 

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What if the greatest shift you could make in your financial life didn’t begin with a new budget, a better investment strategy, or a higher income—but with surrender?

We don’t often think of surrender as a financial word, but it lies at the heart of biblical stewardship. When we embrace the life-changing truth that God owns everything, it transforms how we live, give, plan, and manage the resources He has entrusted to us.

When we think about money, we tend to ask familiar questions:

Those questions may be important, but they are not where Scripture begins.

From the opening pages of the Bible, God is revealed as the Creator and owner of everything. Before humanity ever cultivated a garden or named a creature, God formed, filled, and ruled creation.

Psalm 24:1 declares: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”

Simply put, God is the owner, and we are His stewards.

For many Christians, that is a familiar idea. But familiarity does not always lead to surrender. We may affirm that God owns the universe while living as though we built our lives entirely through our own effort.

We say, “I worked for this,” or, “I earned this.” And while diligent work matters, Scripture reminds us that even our ability to produce wealth comes from God.

Deuteronomy 8:18 says: “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.”

Our talents, opportunities, health, time, and ability to work are all gifts from the Lord.

Jesus develops this idea in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25.

A master entrusts resources to three servants before leaving on a journey. Two servants put what they received to work, while the third buries his portion out of fear. When the master returns, he commends the first two servants—not merely because they produced impressive results, but because they were faithful.

That distinction matters. The world often defines success by outcomes: how much we earn, accumulate, grow, or achieve. God calls us to something deeper—faithfulness with whatever He has placed in our hands.

If God owns everything, then we are not owners in the ultimate sense. We are managers.

The New Testament word commonly translated as “steward” is oikonomos, meaning “household manager.” A steward manages resources he did not create, for purposes he did not determine, under the authority of the master he serves.

At first, that may sound limiting. In reality, it is profoundly freeing.

As financial teacher Ron Blue has often said, “If God owns it all, you can’t lose anything.”

Ownership carries an enormous burden. The owner must ultimately provide, protect, and control. But if God is the owner, then we do not have to carry those responsibilities alone.

Stewardship carries responsibility, but it also rests on trust.

When we truly embrace stewardship, ordinary financial decisions become opportunities to worship God.

Budgeting becomes more than organizing income and expenses. It becomes a way of aligning our desires with God’s priorities.

Giving becomes a response to the generosity we have already received from Him. Saving becomes wise preparation rather than fearful hoarding. Planning becomes an act of obedience rather than an attempt to control every possible outcome. Investing becomes a way to cultivate and multiply what belongs to the Lord, not a strategy for securing complete independence from Him.

The Puritan pastor Thomas Watson once wrote, “What we keep, we may lose. What we give to God is kept forever.”

That statement reminds us tha

Whatever we’ve accumulated in life, we can’t take it with us when life is over. It’s like a game of Monopoly . . . the cash, the houses, the hotels . . . when the game is over, it all goes back in the box. But there is one exception. People. We can take people to heaven with us. The Lord invites us, urges us, to share the Gospel, and invite them to Christ. Today on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie offers good encouragement as a part of his encouraging series called Refresh.

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Become a Harvest Partner today and join us in knowing God and making Him known through media and large-scale evangelism, our mission of over 30 years.

Explore more resources from Pastor Greg Laurie, including daily devotionals and blogs, designed to answer your spiritual questions and equip you to walk closely with Christ.

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When life gets hard, most of us focus on getting through the next week—not ruminating on eternity. But pastor and author Dane Ortlund argues that heaven has everything to do with how we handle suffering, setbacks, and ordinary Tuesdays. The problem? Many Christians aren't actually looking forward to the future Scripture describes. Ask what the Bible says about heaven, and for a lot of us, things get fuzzy fast. Ortlund, author of Finally Home: The Christian Hope of Heaven, tackles some of our biggest assumptions about eternity, the afterlife, and the world to come. What if the future for Jesus followers is far more concrete, physical, and compelling than you've been led to believe?

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• Learn more about Dane and his writing at daneortlund.com

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Most Christian parents want their children to grow up with a strong faith—but it can be hard to know how to nurture that faith in everyday life. Tim Shoemaker shares creative and practical ways parents can make family devotions engaging, memorable, and meaningful for kids of all ages. You’ll discover how simple, intentional moments at home can help pass faith to the next generation while also growing parents in their own walk with God.
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Have you ever been asked in a job interview: “What are your weaknesses?” Some may avoid answering directly or flip the question to brag a little about themselves saying, “I work too hard” or “I care too much.” But in this program, Chip proposes that it’s vitally important we know our faults and that there’s actually a way to use them to our advantage. Join us to learn more!

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not only the creator of Sherlock Holmes, but apparently he was a creative practical joker, too. The story is told of one horrendous - although clever - practical joke that he played one time. He just wrote a short, unsigned telegram - all in fun - to 12 of the best known men in England. The anonymous message was the same; only six words - six scary words, “All is discovered. Flee at once.” You want to guess what happened? As the story goes, within 24 hours not one of those men could be found.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “The Fugitive In the Mirror.”

Interesting! These men were chased, ultimately not by what someone else knew they had done, but by what they knew they had done.

It reminds me of the insightful words of Proverbs 28:1 in the Bible, “The wicked man flees though no one pursues.” You know, twice America has run a popular TV series, and then there was ultimately a blockbuster movie called “The Fugitive.” It’s about a man on the run who can’t shake his pursuer. In a sense, we’re all “the fugitive.” Every one of us knows what it is to be chased emotionally and spiritually by what we’ve done in the past: the people we’ve hurt, the messes we’ve made, the wrong we’ve done. Maybe nobody else knows, but we know and we can’t shake the guilt, the regrets, and that nagging fear of having to face God with it some day.

And like the fugitive on the screen, we can get away from it for a while, but it eventually overtakes us again. Is there no way to erase the guilt of the past instead of being chased by the guilt of the past? Thank God, there is. It’s described in our word for today from the Word of God in Zechariah 3:1. In a very real way, the man called “Joshua the high priest” is a picture of you and me.

Here's what it says: He is “standing before the angel of the Lord (Who, by the way, many believe is actually Christ in the Old Testament.), and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him.” The devil, who will not let you forget what you have done, stands there telling God, “Hey, there’s no way You can take this one, not when You know what he’s really like.” Maybe you’ve felt that way too: too dirty for God to ever really love you - to ever let you into His heaven. The Bible describes this man as “dressed in filthy clothes.”

But it goes on to say, “the angel said, ‘Take off his filthy clothes.’ Then he said to Joshua (and I believe He wants to say this to you today), ‘See I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.’” You’ll never get anywhere with God as long as you’re trying to stand before Him trying to look all religious and righteous. We’re filthy, according to Him. That’s what our sin makes us. But because Jesus loved you enough to take all the guilt and all the hell of your sins and pay for it on the cross, He can literally take away the guilt and take away all the penalty of all your sin.

Can I tell you what today is about? It’s about you finally being clean inside, totally forgiven, and totally free from every sin you have ever committed. But you have to respond to what Jesus has done for you by trusting Him to be your personal Savior from your personal sin. You do that when you say to Him, “Jesus, I believe what You did on the cross is my only hope. I’ve been running my life long enough. I want to be Yours from today on, and I’m grabbing You like a drowning person would grab their rescuer.”

There's some wonderful information that will help you nail down once and for all to know you have got this settled at our website. Would you check it out? It's ANewStory.com, where maybe your new story could begin.

Today the flight of a spiritual fugitive can finally end, because it ends at the foot of Jesus’ cross.