Day 4 | 40-Day Lenten Fast & Devotional

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:8-10

Good morning, good morning, saints of God. This is day five of our Lenten Daily Devotional for this week on onset, because it's Monday. I want to open this up for the time that we have to share this week to focus in on trusting in God. Trusting in God is something that we say all the time. However, I think putting it into practice is a bit of a challenge. So I look this morning at the book of Joshua, the very first chapter of the book of Joshua. I'm going take a look just these really quick two verses. You'll find these similar words:

This book of the law always on your lips, meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you'll be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

These words in and of themselves give us some hope and some marching orders because we know what Joshua's going through. Joshua has recently been elected if you were or installed as the leader upon the death of his predecessor. The problem is they've already gone through so much as a people. Everyone's looking to him and as they get ready to go into the promises that God has, ultimately it doesn't really look that promising from what they've experienced.

The people wandered for 40 years, but now that very same promise that was given, God is reinforcing it and saying, listen, this is the way that you become faithful. The first thing he says, I need you to meditate on the book of the law. He's saying there are some words that are gonna remind you of how you're to conduct yourself when moving forward by faith. He says, listen, there's a blueprint, if you will, that will allow you to look at situations that are challenging, but still move and operate with a spirit of excellence and with a spirit of confidence. The next thing he says, be courageous. Be courageous, be strong. Then he says, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. So when he says, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, mind you, at this point, Joshua really hasn't had any of the battles that are getting ready to take place, but God predicts them. God says, listen, you will see some things over the next period of your administration that will cause you to tap into places of fear. I want you to resist that. He says, you're have some situations that will cause you to be discouraged. I want you to resist that. He said, you're gonna have some areas, some places that you're gonna have to be courageous. I need you to tap into that. And the word echoes true for us even on today.

There are going to be some places even across this week, but even more so in this next season that may try and cause you to be afraid. And God is saying, I need you to resist that. Faithfulness in me literally means to deny feelings of fear, to deny areas of discouragement, to continuously be strong and courageous. How do we do that? Well, he gave us a blueprint in the scripture before. He said, what I need you to do is meditate on this law day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Now, what he's saying basically is what I need you to do is focus on the word. There is nothing that you will experience over time, place and course of your life that has not been covered by this book. Somebody said, a minute, are you serious? Seriously, nothing. And if we can keep this meditated on day and night, then we can access those attributes he just told us about strong, courageous, fearless, determined and not discouraged.

So let's get this Monday started incredibly. Let's go forth. Let's beat all of those things. Let's take a look for the reality of the situations we're facing, but not allow those situations to govern our disposition. Cause God already told us how to live intentional today. I can't wait to talk to you tomorrow. Have an incredible Monday. God bless you.