Despite this reassurance of guaranteed victory, Joshua had a role to play. He had to be strong and very courageous. In fact, God instructed him to be strong and courageous three times in Joshua chapter 1.
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Have you ever been assigned a daunting task and wondered if you are up to it? Perhaps it was a work assignment or even a ministry calling from God. After the death of Moses, God tells Joshua that he would be the one to usher the Israelites into the promised land.
It must have felt a tad unnerving for Him. He had His work cut out for him. But God assures Joshua that just as He was with Moses, He would be with Him. No man would be able to stand before him all the days of His life.
Despite this reassurance of guaranteed victory, Joshua had a role to play. He had to be strong and very courageous. In fact, God instructed him to be strong and courageous three times in Joshua chapter 1.
He was not to be afraid or dismayed. Being strong and courageous was the ticket he needed to access victory.
This begs the question; would Joshua have faced defeat had he given in to fear? Here are four reasons why God needed Joshua to be strong and very courageous.
1. Fear Displeases God
But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.” Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you” (Exodus 4: 13-14).
When Moses got the call to deliver the Israelites from slavery, He felt pretty inadequate. God graciously performed two miracles to fortify his wavering faith. Moses’s staff turned into a snake, and his hand became leprous.
God gave him a peek into his infinite power and assured Him that He would be with Him. Even when Moses stated that he was slow in speech and tongue, God assured Him that He would help him speak and teach him what to say.
But despite witnessing the power of God and being reassured over and over, Moses still begged God to send someone else. Fear took the better part of Him. Because of this, the Lord’s anger burned against him. God gets displeased when we cow in fear.
Courage is an expression of our faith in God and His mighty power. When we step out courageously to execute God’s will, we are showing our faith in God.
That's because, without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Joshua, too, needed to choose courage over fear in order to please God.
2. God Knew Joshua Was Up to the Task
The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:4-5).
The first thing God assured Jeremiah as He called Him a prophet was that He knew Him even before he was formed in the womb. God had already set Him apart and appointed him as a prophet before he was born.
That means that despite the inadequacies Jeremiah nursed, His purpose was already predetermined and ordered by God.
We see Jeremiah lining up his excuses, claiming that he was too young and unable to speak. God, however, asks him not to be afraid and assures him that He would be with Him and rescue him.
God is the one who created our inmost beings and knit us together in our mothers' wombs (Psalm 139:13). Before He even created us, He knew us and set us apart for a particular assignment.
As Joshua gets the call to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, God wants Him to step out in courage because He knows he can do the job. It's an assignment that he ordained for him even before he was formed.
3. Joshua Needed to Be Strong to Obey God’s Instructions
When it was time to conquer Jericho, God gave Joshua specific instructions on how to go about the assignment. He asked him to have the people march around Jericho once every day for six days.
As they did this, seven priests would bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the Lord. Joshua also positioned armed men to go before the priests who blew the trumpets and a rear guard after the ark. They marched around Jericho once each day for six days (Joshua 6).
On the seventh day, Joshua instructed them to go around the city seven times. On the seventh time, as the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua instructed them to shout, and the walls indeed fell. Joshua needed to obey God’s instructions down to a T in order to get hold of victory.
As such, he needed to be strong and courageous. Some of the Israelites had probably poked holes in his plan. After all, they had a reputation for complaining despite the many miracles they had experienced.
To be able to follow God’s instructions, Joshua needed to stand His ground and turn a blind eye to their bickering. He needed to obey God and not fear man. This is unlike Saul, whom God had instructed to destroy all the Amalekites and their possessions.
Saul had spared their king Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves, and lambs — everything that was good (1 Samuel 15:8-9). When Samuel confronted Him, Saul confessed that he had been afraid of the people and given in to their demands (1 Samuel 15:24).
This made God reject him as king. Had he been strong enough to stand up against the people's demands, He would have done the will of God and probably continued to serve as king. Jesus urged His disciples not to be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
He urged them to be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Mathew 10:28). The scriptures also state that the fear of man is a snare (Proverbs 29:25). Joshua needed to be strong in order to steer clear of this snare.
4. God Does Not Give Us a Spirit of Fear
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind(2 Timothy 1:7).
God repeatedly warned Joshua against caving into fear. That's because fear does not come from God. Yet it is a very powerful tool that the enemy uses to intimidate us from doing God's will.
If Joshua had feared, He wouldn't have achieved what he did. Like Joshua, we are often confronted by a myriad of fears. We worry that we will be ridiculed by family and friends as we pursue God’s will.
We fear that we may suffer shame. We fear that God will not keep His promise of never leaving us alone. Fear cripples us from obeying God’s instructions. Little wonder that the scriptures are full of admonition for believers not to fear.
Some Bible commentators opine that the words “fear not” are mentioned in the bible 365 times, while others say that it's a little over 400 times. Many heroes of faith have had to push against fear.
We are however not to exude a spirit of fear but that of power, love, and sound mind. We are to remember that Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).
For further reading:
What Did God Mean ‘Be Strong and Courageous’?
What Does it Mean to Be Strong in the Lord?
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