have courage!

By Pat Dalrymple
There is a reason why the Bible states so many times to fear not and to have courage! It’s because life can be challenging and we need to face our problems bravely as victors. God encourages us so that we can be bold, no matter what happens or how bad the situation is.  What does courage mean? Dictionary.com defines  Courage "as the quality of being ready and willing to face negative situations involving danger or pain. A close synonym is bravery. Showing courage is often thought of as facing such situations without fear, but it also involves facing them despite fear. In other words, someone who has courage might not be fearless, but they face the dangerous, difficult, or frightening situation anyway.
The adjective courageous means having, showing, or done with courage. It can be used to describe people who have courage, or the actions of such people when they face negative situations resolutely. “

It is easy to read the Bible and become judgmental of the people in the Bible and their decisions. The Bible tells the story of real people with real emotions and real problems. And we can see that God is there all the time to encourage them. To let them know He is with them. He is with us all the time as well.
Hindsight is always 20/20 and it is too easy to criticize the Bible characters for their failures. One minister I knew said, “I can’t wait to meet Adam and give him a piece of my mind!” But that minister knew the end of Adam’s decision and felt he could criticize him. Adam really did not realize what God meant until after it was too late.
We also know the end of the stories of the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace. We know how it ended up with Daniel in the Lions Den. We know that Queen Esther saved her people, and that the Red Sea opened and the children of Israel walked through safely. But that is only because we have the entire account. When they were living it, they had to trust God for the ending.
Many of us have heard the statement, “I’ve read the back of the book and we win!” That brings people like me extra comfort, especially when I know we are in for some rough days ahead of us. You see, I am the person who must know the end of a suspenseful movie before it is over. Who would have thought 2020 would have gone the way it did? If we could read the end of the story of Tuesday’s election before we knew the results, would it settle us? Or scare us?
Through every day, God is with us and I am hoping this message will encourage you to be brave and stand strong this next week and this next month and this next year. You see, Covid did not take God by surprise and neither did all the other events of 2020. None of the events in your life has taken God by surprise either and that is the precise reason why we can trust Him. He already knows the end of the story and He is there to help us navigate to that expected end.
Hebrews 10:35-39 35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. 36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. 37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. 38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. 39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
God told Moses to send 12 men to spy out the land and come back with a report in Numbers 13. God told them ahead of time that the land would belong to them. Surely that was true. Surely God knew that, right?
But 10 of the spies came back and reported on the obstacles. We were like grasshoppers in their eyes, they said! We were like nothing!
God was angry and called it an evil report. They saw the huge grapes as well, but all they could stay focused on were the giants. God told them ahead of time that the land was theirs. He said they could have it. And yet, all the spies looked at were the obstacles.
How many times do we look at our own inadequacies and obstacles as an indication of how God will work in our life? We look at how much we are lacking rather than how much God is. We focus on what we can or cannot do, rather than what God can do. And we be come afraid and cave in to fear and admit defeat before we even get into the game.
Fight for what belongs to you! The battleground is our mind and our emotions. We must stop looking at ourselves and put our life totally in God’s hands. Sometimes we fail to get what God promised to us, because we are so stuck on the obstacles, we cannot remember that God is bigger.  
Numbers 14: 6-11 6 And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: 7 And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. 8 If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. 9 Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not. 10 But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. 11 And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?
The Lord was angry at them. He preserved through the ten plagues, brought them through the Red Sea, and kept them along the way. Moses interceded and the Lord caused them to wander 40 years in the desert rather than to wipe them out.
We have to believe God with an all out faith no matter how much we want to run the other way or do something else. We must be brave and have courage. We need to have courage so that we can have victory. Cowards do not experience great victories—only those who are willing to be brave and stand have victory.
Before Moses died, he addressed the Israelites and told them to have courage.
Deuteronomy 31:1-7 And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel. 2 And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: also the Lord hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.
3 The Lord thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them: and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath said. 4 And the Lord shall do unto them as he did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of them, whom he destroyed. 5 And the Lord shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you. 6 Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. 7 And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it.
When the Israelites were finally ready to take the land of Canaan, God encouraged them to be strong and courageous three more times.
Joshua 1:3-9 3 Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. 5 There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. 6 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. 7 Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest. 8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. 9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
Some battles are very hard, uncomfortable, and unreasonably trying to our souls. It is easy to look at the obstacles and quit. It is easy to look away from God and look at what we can see. God knows its easy for us to become afraid. But we must trust that God knows how to fight for us and that He’s willing to fight for us, if we have faith.
Evidently other nations heard of what God did for the Israelites. In Joshua 2:9-11, Rahab told the two scouts, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror and dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted [in despair] because of you. 10 For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the [d]Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan [on the east], to Sihon and Og, whom you [e]utterly destroyed. 11 When we heard it, our hearts melted [in despair], and a [fighting] spirit no longer remained in any man because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.”
Faced with an invasion from Assyria, Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 32:1-8, took action to stop up the wells of water and prepare weapons instead of just surrendering to any army that was obviously better than his. What do we do sometimes in our battles? Sometimes we just give up because the odds seem against us.
2 Chronicles 32:1-8 After these things, and the establishment thereof, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, and entered into Judah, and encamped against the fenced cities, and thought to win them for himself. 2 And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, 3 He took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city: and they did help him. 4 So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water? 5 Also he strengthened himself, and built up all the wall that was broken, and raised it up to the towers, and another wall without, and repaired Millo in the city of David, and made darts and shields in abundance. 6 And he set captains of war over the people, and gathered them together to him in the street of the gate of the city, and spake comfortably to them, saying, 7 Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: 8 With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.
Jehoshaphat said in 2 Chronicles 20:15, 15 And he said, Hearken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's.
I hope by now you can see a pattern. Even though we may feel like the underdog, and want to quit, we are more than a conqueror. Being a conqueror is impressive, but how are we more than that? Because God gives us total and complete victory without any dispute. We conquer in every area of our life.
Romans 8:31-37  What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. 34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Isaiah 41:10-13 10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. 11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. 12 Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. 13 For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.
1 Corinthians 16:13-14 13 Be alert and on your guard; stand firm in your faith ([a]your conviction respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, keeping the trust and holy fervor born of faith and a part of it). Act like men and be courageous; grow in strength! 14 Let everything you do be done in love (true love to God and man as inspired by God’s love for us).
Psalm 31:16-24 16 Let Your face shine on Your servant; save me for Your mercy’s sake and in Your loving-kindness. 17 Let me not be put to shame, O Lord, or disappointed, for I am calling upon You; let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol (the place of the dead).
18 Let the lying lips be silenced, which speak insolently against the [consistently] righteous with pride and contempt. 19 Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear, revere, and worship You, goodness which You have wrought for those who trust and take refuge in You before the sons of men!
20 In the secret place of Your presence You hide them from the plots of men; You keep them secretly in Your pavilion from the strife of tongues. 21 Blessed be the Lord! For He has shown me His marvelous loving favor when I was beset as in a besieged city.
22 As for me, I said in my haste and alarm, I am cut off from before Your eyes. But You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried to You for aid. 23 O love the Lord, all you His saints! The Lord preserves the faithful, and plentifully pays back him who deals haughtily. 24 Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for and hope for and expect the Lord!
Hebrews 13:5-6 5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. 6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
The Amplified says, “He [God] [b]Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor [c]give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [d][I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor [e]let [you] down ([f]relax My hold on you)! [[g]Assuredly not!]”
Ephesians 6:10 10 In conclusion, be strong in the Lord [be empowered through your union with Him]; draw your strength from Him [that strength which His boundless might provides].
God will not let us go. He will be with us no matter what things look like. We must remain courageous and finish the course that He has set before us. He has all of us in His hands. He wants us to put our entire trust in Him. Stop looking at your own inadequacy or your failures and have the complete assurance that God will help you and see you through the end to victory!
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