Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for this daily challenge. It’s Thursday, the day we try to apply and live out what we’ve learned this week from the Bible. This week we’ve been studying when Israel send spies into the promised land, and they were helped by a woman named Rahab, whom God was transforming in a dramatic way.

She’s an unlikely heroine.  If you ever feel like you’re not quite good enough, consider Rahab:

She was a prostitute

She wasn’t an Israelite

Her act of faith included a blatant lie

But God transformed her.  So much so, he was able to use her in his greatest rescue story possible, not just his rescue of the Israelites.

The end of this event lies beyond the scope of today’s passage. During the victory over Jericho, Rahab and her family were indeed spared from death (Joshua 6:17) which we’ll study in two weeks.

But even more exciting, is that if you look in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, you’ll find her name there as an ancestor of Jesus.  Such ancestries usually only include men, but Rahab makes it in.

What Matthew wants us to see and celebrate is how God was weaving together a great story over all these years.   He saved a non-Jewish, sinner and liar thousands of years ago, so that one day her descendant would save the entire world of sinners.

Some day, we would enter our promised land, the Kingdom of God, and the seeming fortress of sin and death that stood in our way would be no threat.

Some day, when death comes, God would spare those who’d put their faith in him.  But instead of a red thread, it would be the red blood of Jesus.

This is something worth celebrating, that God can transform broken people, and write them into his rescue plan for the world.  He can transform and use all of us.

Challenge: Call a friend and invite him or her to celebrate with you something big God has done in your life. Use the time to celebrate and honor God, offering thanksgiving for his faithfulness. It is good to proclaim God’s goodness!