I used to wonder why God thought it necessary to encourage
Joshua, of all people, to be strong and courageous so many times. Joshua was one of two men sent to spy out the
land who actually had the strength and courage to believe that they should
enter the land in spite of the fearsomeness of the people there. This isn't even the first time Joshua was
encouraged to be strong and courageous.
Back in Deuteronomy when Moses chose and commissioned Joshua to lead the
people after Moses' death, he told him the same thing in public and
private. Why did anyone have reason to
doubt Joshua would continue to be strong and courageous when he had always been
that guy? It all changes when you are
the leader. It is easier to be a strong,
bold, courageous risk-taker when the weight of leadership falls on someone
else. When you have responsibility for
the consequences of your actions there is a tendency to be tentative and indecisive
when failure is an option. Joshua, like
all God's leaders, needs to be counseled to be strong and courageous because
God is with them if they are chosen by Him.
Strength and courage comes not from within but from Him. The time for strength and courage is when you
are being careful to do all He commands and calls.
The centurion explains that he sees Jesus as a commander
over the illness of his child. He uses a
military analogy that says when a commander gives an order it must be obeyed,
his faith is in the authority of the one who gives the order. A soldier must do as he is commanded by a
superior officer. In just this way, he
expects that whatever Jesus commands regarding this illness will be done, an
amazing idea. Jesus then commands the man
exactly as the man suggests, "Go."
The promise attached to the going was the healing as he asked. Sometimes we have to walk in the faith we
profess in order to see it as true. True
faith was revealed in going at Jesus' command, it wasn't just talk. Strength and courage was in faith.
Paul was a man who was under orders, just as Joshua and the
centurion were. He was given orders and
also told what he must suffer for the sake of the Gospel (see Acts 9). Because he expected to suffer according to
the word God gave him, he suffered well.
He had no illusions about a life of ease and prosperity in service to
the Lord. Part of the problem in our
time is that we don't have a place for suffering in the Gospel that is anchored
in the suffering of Jesus. We have the
mistaken and harmful belief in the west that belief in Jesus is our ticket to
the good life, a life of protection from harm.
Paul, and the other disciples, had no such belief because they listened
to Jesus' words concerning the matter.
They knew that they, like Joshua, had to be strong and courageous but
they had the same promise that the Lord would be with them always so long as
they walked in the commission He had given them. So do we.
Be strong, courageous and obedient today and see how it works out.
No comments:
Post a Comment