God Is With You Wherever You Go
By: Alan Smith
- Josh 1:9: Yes, be bold and strong! Banish fear and doubt! For remember, the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (TLB)
What an incredible statement this is! Be bold and strong! Banish fear and doubt. This is the statement God spoke to Joshua after the death of Moses. God was calling Joshua to be bold and strong and to enter the promises of God. Evidently, Joshua was walking in fear and doubt: fear of all the problems that were before him; fear and doubt of the battles that were ahead of him. Have you ever had fear, and then so much doubt that you could not make a simple decision? I think all of us have had this problem from time to time. Fear is the beginning of doubt, and doubt is the beginning of confusion. How can we conquer fear and doubt, you might ask? Let’s take a look at the scriptures to find this important key.
In the scripture above, God tells Joshua to “be” so he can “do”. We first must “be what we are to be” before we can “do what we need to do”. We see that Joshua was to be bold and strong, and then he could banish fear and doubt. Have you ever had your hopes and dreams banished by fear and doubt? Of course you have, and so have I. Often, I wonder what has happened to my hopes, my dreams, and my joy. I believe they have been banished: they have been destroyed by two enemies called “fear” and “doubt”. These enemies leave me in a state of confusion, which ultimately leads me into depression. I now find myself in this deep, dark hole of the soul. So, how can I crawl out of this hole? Can you see it? All of us must see that the weapon used against our hopes and dreams is the same weapon that we must use against our fears and doubts. It is the weapon called “to banish”.
Let’s look at the definition of this weapon of the spiritual world. Webster’s dictionary says this: To banish someone or something is to require them, by authority, to leave a country. This truth is unbelievable! We must take back this weapon of authority that is being used against our souls. Satan takes the very authority given to us through Jesus Christ and uses this weapon of banishment against us. When we agree with the spirit of “fear” and “doubt”, we empower them. To be in agreement with fear and doubt is to speak death to our hopes and dreams. Instead of our hopes and dreams being “banished” from the country of our lives, we must banish fear and doubt from our borders. How do we take back this weapon? We must be bold and strong. God is giving us revelation, and then permission, to do this. We are to walk in our authority to banish “fear” and “doubt” and say, “Be gone ‘fear’ and ‘doubt’ by the authority that has been given to me in the name of Jesus Christ.” Then, let’s use this same authority and say, “Hopes and dreams, be alive in my life. I refuse to be robbed of them. Fill the borders of my life from coast to coast: from the top of my head to the bottom of my soul.”
After Joshua banished fear and doubt, he was reminded of something. Let’s read the scripture again.
- Josh 1:9: Yes, be bold and strong! Banish fear and doubt! For remember, the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (TLB)
Joshua was reminded that the Lord God was going to be with him wherever he went. Yes, Joshua was going into the land that God had promised, but he did not have to go before God was with him. As Christians we tend to believe we must go here or go there so we can be in the presence of God. We think if we could only have a certain job or if we could be seen and discovered by certain people or if we could just go to the Holy Land, we could then experience His presence. God was telling Joshua that He was with him already; that the promise was more than a destination—it was a relationship! God was telling Joshua that he was “to be” in relationship with Him, and then he could do what he needed “to do” and take the land of promise. Let me remind you that God is with you wherever you go. Just be careful where you take Him today. Be bold and strong and do not let fear and doubt control your life. God will be with you; just trust Him for His boldness and strength to be upon you. Do not let go of your hopes and dreams, for God will accomplish His will in His time.
Blessings,
Alan
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