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.” – Joshua 1:9 Being strong and courageous is a command from God. God commands this because this what we need to be to “inherit” what God envisioned for our lives before we were even an afterthought in our parents’ minds. Being and strong and courageous allows us to step into our sweet spot, the place where we make the most difference, where we have the most influence. We hit our sweet spot because God goes with us to wherever he leads us. When God is with us, there is no reason to fear and there is definitively no reason to become flustered or saddened. Jesus was strong and courageous when in his innocence, carried the burden of a guilty man’s cross to Calvary. It was by being strong enough to endure the death unbefitting of God that we saw courage to to take a risk on people who may not even love him in return. I know what you are thinking right now: how do I become strong and courageous because those two qualities are not innate within me. I totally know what you mean. To understand how we can become strong and courageous in a very practical way, we need to examine verse 7 in this chapter. It says, “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.” If you don’t want to read the Book of Deuteronomy (the law of Moses) then we can go to what Jesus says to the lawyers in Matthew, Mark and Luke as the summary of the “law of Moses”, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” You are strong when openly and ardently love God, who provides for you. You openly and ardently love God when you honor Him, that is, when you start looking at the world from His perspective by being transformed and having the presence of God with you in prayer, making your body a temple, a living sacrifice. You are courageous when you come out of your self-centeredness and love somebody in a way you would love yourself in your self-centeredness. Simply put, what would happen if you started to give and do to other people that which you would do and give to yourself? I’m not talking about charity, I’m talking about treating other people how you would treat yourself. Going back to verse 7, the writer continues to say about loving God and loving your neighbor, “do not turn from it.” We make so many exceptions to doing these two things in our lives. For example, we pick and choose when God is convenient for us and love Him in worship when we have nothing better to do or when we are in trouble. Or we hold back our love for God before some of our non-Christian friends because we fear alienating them with “our religion” and so we alienate God because He will understand. In this way, we turn from loving God strongly and courageously. Then there is the issue of making exceptions to which neighbors we love plainly because we don’t “like” them. This is another example of turning from the Law of Moses. This morning I want to encourage you to be strong and courageous by following the law of Moses– that is of Christ. I want you to set aside your fear, your disappointment, and your anxiety because you are in the presence of God who is traveling with you, directing you to your sweet spot. God will not leave you or forsake you and that is a promise, so be strong and courageous. I pray this morning that we can be strong and courageous so that we can receive what God sets apart for us. I pray that we can meditate on God’s laws and be strong and courageous enough not to turn from it. Another quiet time will be available later this afternoon, keep your eyes open.