To Encourage You

Joshua 1:6-9 “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good 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 good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

There were so many things that God had promised the people of Israel that, unfortunately, many of them never experienced.  But why not?  What hindered them?  Well, to sum it all up, it seemed always to be one of two inextricably linked things: disobedience and unbelief. 

Soon after Israel escaped Egyptian bondage, God commanded them to enter Canaan.  He promised them victory over the inhabitants of the land.  But did they do it? No. They sent spies into the land, and though they found the land to be “flowing with milk and honey” just like God had said, they saw that the Canaanites were very strong men, and because of their fear, they refused to enter the land and receive what God had promised. They neither believed nor obeyed what God had clearly told them, and as a result that generation died in the wilderness and never entered in. 

So after that 40-year period, God reissued His command to enter Canaan in the words above to Joshua.  Notice how He says “be strong and courageous” not once, not twice, but three times!  Then He says it in the negative form “Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed.” And why not: “for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”  Isn’t God saying the same thing to you and me about His many promises to us?  For example, God has told us through the apostle Paul, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).  But do we really believe this? Do we actually trust Him? Are we “strong and courageous” when our needs weigh us down, or are we frightened and dismayed, the things God told Joshua not to be? 

When a person is tempted to cheat on their income taxes or otherwise veer from God’s Word because they think that way instead of God’s way will somehow be better for them, should they be surprised when God’s promises of joy and peace elude them?  Should they really be surprised about the guilt or shame they experience instead?  It’s the same about everything He has promised us, things like peace that passes understanding, joy unspeakable and full of glory, hope, and grace in its many forms.   They are all God’s promises that are available to us if we know, trust, and obey His Word.  Ignorance, unbelief, and disobedience, on the other hand, do nothing but rob us of these things.  It’s as the old hymn says in it’s simple but oh so true words: “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus (i.e., that blessed condition of living in all that God has for us), but to trust and obey.”