The first chapter of Joshua, in verses 6, 7 and 9, the Lord commands Joshua to be “strong and courageous”. In fact, God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous not once, not twice but THREE times. I don’t know about you but I am thinking that maybe God wants Joshua to be strong and courageous…
Indeed, one might think that receiving such explicit marching orders from God would have been enough to convince Joshua about the seriousness of the situation he was facing. And maybe it was sufficient for Joshua…after all Joshua was an obedient man and a faithful follower of God in the tradition of Moses.
But what is interesting to me about these few verses is the fact that God didn’t stop at just telling Joshua to be strong and courageous. God also commanded Joshua to obey all the laws Moses gave him and that in order to be prosperous and successful, Joshua must also meditate on the law day and night so that he might do all that is written in them. And then…in what I would describe as a final punctuation as to the gravity of the situation, God tells Joshua to not be terrified and do not be discouraged.
This is essentially God’s fourth plea, in as many verses, for Joshua to have courage…after all, to be discouraged, according to Webster’s dictionary, is to lack courage. God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous four times while also commanding complete chastity to the written laws he received from Moses. And then, rather than leaving it at that, God offers Joshua yet another exhortation; do not be terrified and do not be discouraged.
God knows something about the severity of the battles we face and how we will be tried and tested while doing battle in the spiritual realm. Ephesians says “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Moreover, God knows something about these “rulers, authorities and spiritual forces of evil”…after all He created them. He also knows that without full chastity to His commands…we might as well go into battle unarmed. And yet that is exactly what so many of us do every single day.
I pray that as men we will be strong and courageous in our battles and that we will equip ourselves appropriately with the whole armor of God…Paul identifies the armor we need here:
“the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…”
Has He not commanded us?
Be blessed…
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