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Be Strong and Courageous

I was reading Joshua today and noticed that God tells him to be strong and courageous 4 times in 1 chapter and one of those times, He spoke through the very people Joshua was to lead! The third time God straight up tells Joshua, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; don't be afraid nor dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." Saying that sounds like God could see Joshua's heart and knew he was afraid, so God is like, "Are you not listening to me? I am with you! Man up!"
I can't tell you how many times in so many different places and situations God has commanded me to go way out of my comfort zone for Him. Every time, I get all scared and think the worst will happen and God has to remind me, just like He did to Joshua, to be strong because He is with me. I mean, its kind of ridiculous to be scared when the very God of ALL creation dwells within you and goes before you and behind you AND with you everywhere you go. Its basically a slap in the face to God because its like telling Him He is not who He says He is. God is so capable of doing things on His own, yet it is so awesome that He chooses to use weak little us to show His glory.
God told Joshua that he was going to use him to finally bring about this plan that He has had going for hundreds of years and so its no wonder Joshua is scared...he doesn't want to screw up what God is doing. God is using us followers of Jesus everyday to fulfill plans that he has had for the people around us for many years. We all act like we want to be used by God and we want to change the world, yet we back down so many times God wants to use us to do just that! Once we learn to embrace God's call and always answer back with a "Yes" like Abraham, God is going to use us to change our world. We shouldn't be focused on the whole world, but the world God has given us, those people we can influence daily. Through the whole body's obedience, God will change the whole world.

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