It takes Courage!

I saw this liked it and wanted to share it:

IT TAKES COURAGE – Author Unknown

It takes strength to be firm,
It takes courage to be gentle.

It takes strength to conquer,
It takes courage to surrender.

It takes strength to be certain,
It takes courage to have doubt.

It takes strength to fit in,
It takes courage to stand out.

It takes strength to feel a friend’s pain,
It takes courage to feel your own pain.

It takes strength to endure abuse,
It takes courage to stop it.

It takes strength to stand alone,
It takes courage to lean on another.

It takes strength to love,
It takes courage to be loved.

It takes strength to survive,
It takes courage to live.

I like this poem but I love what these have to say about courage:

Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you. – (NKJV)

Joshua 1:3-9
I promise you what I promised Moses: ‘Wherever you set foot, you will be on land I have given you … No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you.

Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (NLT)

1 Chronicles 28:20
David also said to Solomon his son, "Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the LORD is finished. (NIV)

1 Corinthians 16:13
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. (NIV)

These are some of my favorite verses on courage – what is your favorite Bible verse on courage?

Courageous Christian Life

Joshua 1:6 – 9  "Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.  "Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go.  "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.  "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

Look at the phrase: be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you: Joshua must take great care to observe the law. God’s word and Joshua’s commitment to it would be the pillars supporting his success. If we desire to be men and women of Christian courage then we must take care to know what is in the Word of God and we must make the commitment to live by. We must take time to read it daily. We must take time to know it and study it. We are not doing this out of duty or because we have gotten up at this time for the last 20 years and done it this way but we do it out of deep love for Christ. I also want you to see that Joshua did not only need to read God’s word. It had to be on his lips (shall not depart from your mouth), and it was in his mind (meditate in it day and night). Be sure to know and live out the Word of God if you wish to live the courageous Christian life. 

Then we have the phrase:  For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success: Obedience to God’s Word is a guarantee of Christian success but not that it promises a life without problems as we already discussed, but it does insure a life able to deal with anything, because it takes full advantage of God’s presence and promises. Something else to add to this and that is Christian success is not measured by the same standards as the world’s success. Even if the world considers us as sheep for the slaughter, we are actually more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:36-37).

We also then see this phrase: For the LORD your God is with you wherever you go: The final encouragement, repeated from Joshua 1:5, reminds us that Joshua’s success did not depend solely on his ability to keep God’s Word. It depended even more on God’s presence with him. The same is true for all of us. We need not be dependent on self at all but wholly on God.

Friends, there is just as great a need for people to stand for the Lord now as there was in the days Joshua! All around us, Christians are falling by the wayside. What we need is for God’s people to be moved in the depths of their souls to stand up, renew their commitments to the Lord and say, "By God’s help, I’ll stand and not fall all the days of my life! I will commit to living the Courageous Christian life."

How would you define living the Courageous Christian Life?

Strong and Courageous

Joshua 1:6 – 9: 6 "Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 "Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. 8 "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. 9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

Be strong and very courageous: What we see is that Joshua is called to boldness in God. There is the call to boldness for you and I too. This exposes Joshua’s weakness; there was a need for such a command, because even a great leader like Joshua needed such encouragement. Why? His mentor and friend has died and now he is leading these people the promised land. There is a lot of pressure on Joshua to do things right – to do things God’s way.

The leaders in your church, the pastor of your church need encouragement because leading people is hard. That is what Joshua is finding out and that is something that anyone who has lead a group of people can tell you – leadership is hard and leaders need encouraged but to go with that leaders also need to have courage.

The word courageous in Hebrew gives the picture of being resolute and growing firm. When you come up against something that you know is powerful or challenging you must have resolved in your heart beforehand that you are going to move forward at all costs. That is the call of God to Joshua here – things are not going to be easy so you need to have the resolve in your heart that I am with you and leading you and you need to keep moving forward at all cost.

Think about your own life. God has not promised any of us that this life was going to be easy. There is most likely not a person who reads this who could say that they have had an easy life. When you place your faith and trust in Christ that does not mean that all problems and struggle are going to go away. That does not mean it is now easy street as they sing about in the Broadway show Annie. What it means is that you have someone to go through the hard times with you. You have Christ to give the boldness, the strength, the courage to make it through. Let me ask you, are you facing this life with courage? Are you resolved in your heart that you are going to do things God’s way? Are you resolved to keep moving forward for Christ at all cost in your life?

What would you say  is the most courageous thing you have ever done?

We will talk more about these verses tomorrow.

Promises, Promises

Joshua 1:5,6 -  5 “No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. 6 “Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

Do you see the powerful promises of God here? Look at this closely – Joshua is reminded of some very precious promises in these verses. Here are the five things in these two verses that God promised him:

V. 5 The promise of victory over every enemy. – No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life

V. 5 The promise of the presence and power of God. – Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you

V. 5 The promise of the faithfulness of God. – I will not fail you or forsake you.

V. 6 The promise of absolute victory. – for you shall give this people possession of the land

V. 6 The promise of God to keep His promises. – which I swore to their fathers to give them.

What did Joshua have to do to make these things happen? Just one thing: Trust God! God was going to give Israel the victory. Joshua was merely the instrument that God had chosen to use to do it. These things were going to happen! For Joshua to be a part of it, all he had to do was have faith in God!

Let me also share with you that these same promises go for you and I but what we need to do is to Trust God – that is what the courageous Christian does.

Look here at the same  promises for us:

He still gives victory over all our enemies – 1 John 5:4-5 – For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

He is still ever-present and all powerful – Heb. 13:5 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU, as well as Matt. 28:18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

He is still faithful – Matt. 28:20 – teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

He still gives absolute victory – 1 Cor. 15:57- but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

He still keeps His promises – Rom. 4:21. – and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform

I love these promises!

What is a promise of God that sticks out in your mind?

Courage and Obedience

Joshua 1:1-4 – 1 Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, 2 "Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. 3 "Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. 4 "From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory.

So what do we see here: We see that Moses has died and God reminds Joshua of this fact. I am sure that Joshua is well aware of this fact because of the death of Moses, Joshua is now in charge. Have you ever been in a position at work or somewhere else where the main person is sick or held up for some reason and now all the sudden you are in charge? You might have been training for that day to come but when it comes – it can take your breath away and sometimes your courage along with it. All the sudden you are standing there with all the responsibility squarely on you. That is the position that Joshua is in – now all the responsibility of leading the people of Israel is squarely on his shoulders.

So God reminds Joshua that Moses dead but also reminds him that He has given them land. There is land right there that is for the taking and all the need to do is go and get it. Joshua is commanded to lead the people into Canaan to claim the land that they had been promised by the Lord. The land was given to them back in Gen. 12:7 and the promise was reaffirmed to every succeeding generation of the nation of Israel. The land was their land! There was no need for them to continue their wandering around in the wilderness. They had a land, all they had to do was to go and take it!

I look around me as I go through my weeks and I see Christians who are defeated, who struggle with sins, who, for all intents and purposes are wandering around in a spiritual wilderness living in fear. It does not have to be that way! God has promised you and I can live in victory but the caveat is that you must live in obedience to Him. Just read verses like 2 Corinthians 2:14 which says: But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. Or read verses like Rom. 8:37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. I believe with all my heart that God did not save you to see you defeated! Most of the time, we are defeated because we refuse to walk in obedience! I am talking about living a life of obedience to Christ which in turn leads us to triumph in Christ and conquering through Him. Let us live the obedient life! Living in obedience is the start to being a courageous Christian.

Have you ever found yourself with responsibility square on your shoulders when you did not expect it?  Have you lived in defeat rather than in obedience?

Are you a Victor?

Joshua 10:8 – “The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands; not one of them shall stand before you.”

The end of this verse  says, “for I have given them into your hands; not one of them shall stand before you.” Joshua is told not to fear because God has given them into his hand.  God is showing Joshua that he need not fear because he is going to win.  He says that same thing to you.

I want you to know Lord never saved you for you to be defeated! When He saved you, He did so with the promise that you could walk in His victory.

1 Cor. 15:57 - but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Rom. 8:37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

That doesn’t mean that every situation in life will work out the way you want it to, but it does mean that God will enable you to live above your circumstances and share in His victory over the world, the flesh and the devil!  We are conquers and victors in Christ Jesus!

Are you living like a conqueror and a victor or are you living in defeat?  If you are living in defeat, I want you to stand up today as believe what Paul tells us in Romans “If God be for us, who can be against us?”  and move forward.  We need to not only be living in victory but we need to showing others the way to victory and that comes through surrendering to Jesus Christ.

What are your thoughts on this?

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FEAR!

Joshua 10:8 – The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands; not one of them shall stand before you.”

Notice is what the Lord says at the very beginning and that is this: Do not fear them.  Do not fear is one of the most repeated commands all of in Scripture.  Why?  Because, truth be told, we are a fearful people.  We are fearful of change, we are fearful risks, we are fearful because we might look foolish which is fear because of pride.  There are many reasons we are full of fear at times in our lives.

Do not fear is one of those things that God usually doesn’t say this unless there’s a reason to fear. In other words, Joshua might have been right to be a little fearful of what he was facing in this situation.  Think about this, Joshua is the leader but, so far, Joshua has only had to face one city and one king at a time in leading in all of his battles.  He faced Jericho and he faced Ai but now he is heading off to face five kings and armies all at once.   He might have good reason to fear but God has given him even better reason to not fear – because he said “Do not fear”.

Let us bring this around to us and what I see as a challenge from God.   God’s challenge to Joshua was for them not to fear the enemy. I see here that God was just reminding Joshua that He was still in control of the situation.   That same challenge is true for us today – we need to know and understand that God is in control.

Sometimes the thing that holds us back from taking the Promised Land or the things promised to us by God is: FEAR.  Do I need to remind you of  the children of Israel not going into the Promised Land because of fear (see Numbers 13)? All too often we don’t want to head in the direction God’s pointing us because we’re afraid.  We allow the fear to control us, which is a terribly sad thing because we are missing out on God’s best.  Always keep in mind that: We’ll never get there out of the place we are in, if we never leave, and sometimes we need to take the risk and push through the fear and trust God.

What place has are you stuck in because of fear?  What fears do you have?  What is fear holding you back from?

Make the choice today to not allow fear to hold you back from God’s best!

Listening: A Part of Prayer?

I started a new series yesterday on prayers from the Old Testament and I dealt with the prayer of Joshua in Joshua 10:6-14  but today I want to focus in on verse 8.

Joshua 10:8 – The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands; not one of them shall stand before you.”

I want you to notice in the verse that the Lord is speaking to Joshua.  The Lord spoke and Joshua heard.  Why did Joshua hear?  Simply because he was listening.  When it comes to prayer we need to be listening to what God is saying.  For many though this becomes a real problem.  Our problem is that sometimes we are so busy reading God our list of things we want him to do like he is Santa that we never listen to what He has to say.  Imagine having a friend who only ever asked you to do this and do this and do this and you are so great and because of that would you do this and this.  That is many times how we must appear in prayer to God.

Sometimes we are so distracted by all the noise and activity that is all around us that we do not hear God.  We have ear buds in our ears,the radio on, the television on, or something playing on our computers.  Sometimes we are distracted by reading all the tweets, texts, cell phones ringing and facebook posts that we do not take time to listen to God.  These things are not bad in and of themselves but sometimes they are a distraction from listening to God or being able to hear God.

In life I believe that there needs to be time or maybe even several times throughout the day were we just stop and listen.  Be still and know he is God.  Listen for that still quiet voice.  Again in the verse above the Lord spoke to Joshua and he listened.

Let me as you some tough questions:  What is God saying to you today?  When was the last time you heard His voice?  Listening is a skill, have you developed it spiritually?

We will look more at verse 8 tomorrow – there are many interesting parts to it.