Living Courageously for God

Dannah Gresh: Are you facing a big challenge today? Your ability to face it with courage might reveal more about your view of God than it does about the actual battle you’re in. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: To be strong and courageous in the midst of challenges is an expression of faith. It’s an exercise of the will.

Dannah: When I think about the legacy I want to leave, I hope that my children say I lived a bold life for Jesus. I want them to see me as a woman of courage, who trusted God enough to do hard things for Him.

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh. 

The Bible tells not to be afraid. I don’t believe that God would call us to something that is impossible. Do you? But often the things God calls us to do are waaay outside of our comfort zones. What’s the connection between courage and faith?

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth taught from Deuteronomy 31. That’s where we first hear the inspiring words, “Be strong and courageous, don’t be afraid.” 

To help set the stage let me just read the first few verses of Deuteronomy 31?

Then Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel, saying, “I am now 120 years old; I can no longer act as your leader. The Lord has told me, ‘You will not cross the Jordan.’ The Lord your God is the one who will cross ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will drive them out. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, as the Lord has said. The Lord will deal with them as he did Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and their land when he destroyed them. The Lord will deliver them over to you, and you must do to them exactly as I have commanded you. Be strong and courageous; don’t be terrified or afraid of them. For the Lord your God is the one who will go with you; he will not leave you or abandon you.”

What a promise! God goes on to repeat "be strong and courageous" numerous times. Ever wonder why? Well, here’s Nancy with the answer.

Nancy: As I’m reading this passage, I’m asking myself why did God repeatedly tell Joshua to be strong and courageous and not to be afraid? And by the way, this wasn’t the first time these instructions had come to Joshua. If you go back into the book of Deuteronomy, God had already told Joshua previously through His servant Moses, “Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.”

Why did God feel it was necessary for Joshua to hear this message over and over again? Well, God knew what lay ahead for Joshua and for the Children of Israel. God knew that the task to which He had called Joshua was bigger than He could handle. God knew the task was not humanly possible. And God knew that there were many tough battles ahead. There were fierce enemies that were going to have to be overcome in the Promised Land, and apparently, God also knew that Joshua would be prone to be easily discouraged, to become fearful in the face of those challenges.

So God says over and over again to His servant, “Don’t be afraid. Be strong. Be courageous.” God was speaking to the inherent human weakness in Joshua and saying, “I want to infuse you with strength, the strength of My Spirit, the strength of My presence, the strength of My promises, the strength of My Word. Be strong. Be courageous. Don’t be frightened. Don’t be dismayed.”

Now you also have to wonder not only why did God say this over and over again to Joshua, but why did God take the time and make the effort to record this whole speech in the Bible? Why not be more succinct? I’m an editor by background and training and trade, and I have been taught you have to be succinct. You don’t necessarily need to repeat things over and over again. The passage we’ve just read we would call redundant.

So why did God in His sovereignty as He inspired the Scripture inspire the repetition of these phrases? Well, I’m convinced it’s because God knows us and God knows what lies ahead for each of us. He knows that we are prone to be fearful and to become discouraged when we’re faced with major challenges or major assignments that are beyond our human ability.

So Joshua is commanded to be strong and courageous. The dictionary says the courage is "the state or quality of mind that enables one to face danger or fear with self-possession, confidence, and resolution."

Courage doesn’t mean you don’t run into fearful circumstances. It means you do run into fearful circumstances, and you do it with confidence and without fear. You do it with resolution. It’s a quality that God gives to us as we trust in Him, but it’s not an option for the servant of the Lord. God didn’t say to Joshua, “I hope you will be strong and courageous. I hope you won’t be frightened.” God says, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous.”

This suggests to me that to be strong and courageous in the midst of challenges is an expression of faith. It’s an exercise of the will. It’s a choice we can make to run head-on into the situation by God’s grace. God says, “You are to be strong and of good courage. You are not to be frightened or dismayed.” That word “dismayed” means "to be afraid, to be confounded, to be alarmed."

How many of you right now in your lives are facing situations—one or more situations—where your natural response could be to be frightened or dismayed? Let me see your hands. Okay, most in this room. Let me say if you didn’t raise your hand just now, probably your hand will be up before too many more days pass because life being what it is, you’re usually coming out of a storm or in a storm or heading into a storm.

So we need these words. God gave this instruction not just to Joshua but for our instruction, for our exhortation. “Be strong and of good courage. Do not be frightened or dismayed.”

Now, Joshua got his direction from God. Joshua didn’t wake up one morning and say, “I think I’d like to go across the Jordan River with these one to two million people. I think we’d like to take over Canaan, the Promised Land. I think we’d like to go tackle Jericho.” This was not Joshua’s idea.

If we were writing the script for our lives, we would not assign to ourselves the tasks that God assigns us. We would play it safe. We would do something we think we could manage. Some of you have a lot of children. If you were writing the script for your life, you would probably have determined how many children you think you could manage and then that’s how many children or how few you would have had.

But God knows what you can manage and God wants you to live in the realm of faith, so whether it’s children or marriage or work or church or relationships, God takes us past what we think we can handle, past what we can handle apart from Him, and He says, “Now go in and be strong and courageous.”

When we’re doing what God has assigned to us, we can be strong and of good courage. But we need to make sure what we’re doing is what God has assigned us to do.

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth reminding us that He has equipped us to be strong and courageous. Did you know that? He’s already equipped you, so walk in it, friend.

We have more of Nancy’s teaching on Joshua and his charge from God, to be strong and courageous, on our website, ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend.

Song: “Be Strong in the Lord” 

Be strong, be strong, be strong in the Lord
And be of good courage for He is your guide.
Be strong, be strong, be strong in the Lord
And rejoice for the victory is yours.¹

Dannah: I remember when Bob and I first started to feel the pull to launch the ministry now called True Girl. We didn’t have a staff. We didn’t have a funding source. We didn’t have a tour bus like we do now. We just knew that God had laid it on our hearts to find a way to reach little women with the message that freedom is found in Jesus Christ. 

Boy, was it scary times. There are days, honestly, when it still is. But I can tell you God has shown up over and over again. He really is a big God! And the more we’ve stepped out in faith, the more our courage has grown, because He has never, ever failed us. 

When I think of courage and people in the Bible, my mind automatically pivots toward Rahab. Talk about brave! 

Erin Davis sat down in the studio with Paulina Torres and Leslie Bennett. They considered how Rahab’s faith in the one true God emboldened her to take big risks. 

Erin Davis: I really believe that we see in Rahab someone who got a bigger view of God along the way, and it equipped her to take some risks for Him. What did she risk? Rahab is willing to house the spies, she lies to the king about it, so what did she risk in doing that?

Paulina Torres: She risked her life and her family’s lives!

Leslie Bennett: Everything! I mean, she was a traitor to her nation, and she knew that she could lose everything!

Erin: There was no going back from this moment. Now, we know that Jericho was going to be destroyed, and she wasn’t going to be able to go back anyway. But she did not know that. There was no going back in any way from this. She risked it all because she believed God was who He says He is.

Who are some others that you can think of—they could be famous or not famous, they could be your neighbor, your pastor, some others that you can think of—when I say they risked big for God, who comes to mind? Leslie, who do you think of?

Leslie: Yes, I just happened to be reading about this the other day, about a woman who was killed by a terrorist attack in Iraq. She was a missionary, and before she packed up and went to the mission field, she wrote a letter to her pastor and handed it to him. 

She said, “If anything should ever happen to me, here’s a letter for my family, for my church family, and for my friends.”

Erin: She knew the risks. She didn’t go into it blindly.

Leslie: She knew the risks going into it, but here’s what she said in her letter. 

“If something happens and I do not return, there are no regrets for I am with Jesus. My call is to obedience. Suffering is expected. His glory is my reward!” 

That made a huge impression on me!

Erin: That’s somebody with a big view of God!

Leslie: I want to be able to say that, even though God’s not sending me to the mission field right now, today. I’m still here. But I want to be able to say that about my life, my daily life: “Obedience is my call; suffering is expected; His glory is my reward!” 

Erin: And there’s no regrets because I am with Jesus.

Leslie: Yes, no regrets!

Erin: I don’t know that woman. 

Leslie: I don’t know her either.

Erin: But we can know something about her faith from what she did and what she said. She’s not somebody who thought God was puny and not sovereign and not big and not good, or she wouldn’t have done those things.

Paulina, when you think of somebody who’s risked for God, does somebody come to mind?

Paulina: Well, all throughout the New Testament, we see all these people that are willing to die for Jesus. They are stoned; they’re put into prison; they are tortured, and they risked their lives saying, “I believe that Jesus is the true God!”

I think in our daily lives we see people around us that are suffering something, and when they claim, “This is what God has promised me,” your faith is like, “Ah, I believe in this true God!” 

Just a couple of days ago, one of my very good friends, her grandson that had been born. And forty-eight hours later, he died. 

And the first thing that she wrote me was, “God is good.” Only somebody that knows this true God and only somebody that has seen Him faithful throughout the Bible and in her life could say, “God has been good. He gave us our grandson for forty-eight hours, and He is good.” For me those are like, “Wow!”

Erin: That’s a woman with a big view of God! 

Leslie: It sure is!

Erin: You mentioned those in the New Testament who were willing to risk everything. I don’t know how you can deny the resurrection when Jesus’ followers were willing to go to death because of it. They weren’t going to go to death for a fairy tale! They weren’t going to go to their own deaths for some P.R. scheme they’d made up. They weren’t going to do it to save face.

I mean, once the risks were in front of them, they would have crumbled. But they didn’t crumble! They were strengthened and they grew. That’s because they had seen the risen Savior! That’s a pretty big view of God!

Paulina: Think about Stephen when he was being stoned.

Erin: I love his sermon! 

Paulina: He looked up and saw Jesus’ glory . . .

Leslie: . . . and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God!

Erin: I think of this couple in my church. They’re in their early seventies; they’ve worked really hard. They’re at the place of retirement, but they don’t want to retire. They just agreed to join a missionary organization. They’re professional counselors, and they go all over the world to give counseling to missionaries.

I can’t imagine. In their early seventies, traveling all over the world is challenging. And, you know, they’re really risking a lot. They’re risking their retirement or the American dream or being away from their kids or grandkids. Some of the places they’re going, they’re legitimately risking their safety. Why? Because they have a big view of God!

And Rahab, we see this bravery in her. It’s not just foolishness. She’s not just carefree. Somewhere along the line she got a bigger view of God. 

Paulina: I think that what we believe of God is going to determine how we live our lives every day— what we do, what we don’t do, how we act, what we decide. 

Leslie: I keep coming back to the fact that Rahab didn’t have the Word of God. She had so much less of truth to base her life on than we do. She only had two stories that she knew about God, and she chose to believe them. How much do I sometimes struggle about getting a high view of God . . . and I have the whole counsel of God, from beginning to end! 

That really says something to me. Believe and act on the Word of God, whatever you hear. However much you have of it, grab hold of it! Make it real in your life!

Dannah: Amen! That’s Leslie Bennett, Paulina Torres, and Erin Davis, in a conversation from the Women of the Bible podcast. It reminded me of Hebrews 11. You’ve probably heard it called the Hall of Faith, because it is chock-full of the names of people who risked it all for God. I can’t wait to meet the people on that list in heaven! 

You might not ever be called upon to hide spies or attack pagan armies, but there are times it takes courage to be obedient to do the simple acts of confessing our sin. 

We probably all have areas of sin that we could easily leave under the surface:

• Gossip
• Irritability
• Quiet bitterness

And it takes courage to bring these things to light. They can live there for years, you know.

You know what else takes courage? Forgiving other people and asking for forgiveness, especially when the hurt is deep. 

I want to give you an example of that kind of courage from my own life. I talked recently in South Africa with a group of friends. I told them how hard it was for me to share some parts of my hidden past with my husband. It took courage and lots of trust. Here’s some of what I shared with them. 

Dannah (conference): Forgiveness (here’s a big one for the married ladies) is accepting that the person who hurt you has no ability to heal you. Ladies, it drives our husbands crazy when we ask them to be our healers.

Do you know what I spent the first year of marriage doing? (Did I mention high-conflict couple?) We are also a high-fun couple, a high-love couple, a high-adventure couple. We did everything high. (laughter) I remember in that first year . . . You know how you have a fight with your husband, so you leave him in the bedroom, in the dark, to be miserable.

You go into the other room, and you lay there wide awake, waiting for him to come on his white horse, like a hero. (laughter) Oh, you’ve done it, too! (laughter) And he doesn’t. You wait fifteen minutes. You wait thirty minutes. You wait forty-five minutes. You wait an hour.

And then you think, Oh, I’ll just go in the room, and I’ll help him. If I’m in there, then he’ll say, “I’m so sorry, Honey.” (laughter) And you go in the room to the melodious sound of snoring. (laughter) Right?

I started to grow up one day. Instead of walking into the other bedroom, I said, “Jesus, I hurt right now. I don’t think my husband is supposed to be my healer, but can You help heal us? Will You be our Healer?”

I am my husband’s forgiver. He is my forgiver. But I am not his healer, and he is not mine.

Forgiveness is accepting that the damage is 100% my damage to deal with.

The person that you need to forgive can’t fix the damage in your heart. Who can? Who can?

Isaiah 53:5, “By His wounds we are healed. By His stripes we are healed.”

Married women, let your husband off the hook. Don’t make him your healer. Don’t make him fix your damage. He may be a part of it in the right time, but unless you start with Jesus, it will never work.

Here’s a big one—you ready for this? Ladies who are having a problem with a friend at church, forgiveness is no longer demanding that whoever hurt me should be hated by those on my side. (Go ahead. Write it down. I know. Somebody said that to me once. I’m passing it on.)

Forgiveness is promising never to bring that sin up again to control or hurt that person. (Do I need to say that again? Okay, I will.) Forgiveness is promising never to bring that sin up again to control or hurt that person.

In her book on forgiveness, Nancy calls that pressing the delete button.

When I finally got the courage to confess my past to my husband, I expected rejection. I expected more shame. But I found out it’s true—James 5:15, “Confess your sins to one another, and you will be healed.” In his arms I felt forgiven for the first time. I felt the forgiveness of God. He was arms and voice of Jesus in affirming my forgiveness. And in thirty years of marriage, not one time has he ever brought my sin up as a weapon against me. He is a great forgiver.

I stand before you today, in part, because my husband is a great forgiver that God used to give me courage to be transparent. What a beautiful thing to give that gift to someone. What if you would give that gift to your offender? What would their life look like?

That’s what forgiveness is. What is forgiveness not?

Forgiveness is not minimizing or making small the offense of the debt that you are canceling. In fact, if anything, it is not forgiveness if we don’t acknowledge what it really is. We cannot minimize.

One of the places as I’m praying with women where we are very tempted to minimize forgiveness is when we’re praying for forgiveness for damage our parents have done to us. We say things like:

“They didn’t know any better.”

“They had worse parents than I had.”

“They did the best they could.”

You know what I encourage women when I’m praying with them through forgiveness, no matter who it is? I tell them—this is the word I use—“Girl, we’ve got to vomit it all out.”

That’s not a very pretty picture, is it? Not very lady like at all, as I stand here up in my dress. But it’s got to get out of you. Forgiveness is getting it out of you. If you’re going to cancel the debt, you’ve got to get it out.

And so I say, “Listen, I just want you to take a minute, and you’re going to say: ‘I choose to forgive ____ (and you plop in the name).’ And then whatever God’s Spirit, whatever memory God’s Spirit brings to your mind, just say it out loud: ‘I forgive them for abandoning me. I forgive them for embarrassing me. I forgive them for that night in May of 2006 when I expected them to come and get me and pick me up after school, and they didn’t come for three hours because they forgot me.’ And you just get as real as you can.”

And I sit there, as if I’m spiritually holding a can for them as they pour it all out. And then I say, “All right, sweet girl, that was good! I’m taking the trash out. The work is done.”

But you cannot minimize the pain. You have to use the real words.

Dannah: That was me, Dannah Gresh, speaking to a group of women in South Africa. What a special time we had together.

Some of that takes me right back to some places of deep hurt, but I am so glad I trusted God enough and had His courage to ask for forgiveness and to forgive, because today my heart is healed. It's not painful to hear that again. He really is big enough to handle it. He will always give you the courage you need in any situation. 

Before we say goodbye, I want to mention that Nancy’s bestselling book Choosing Forgiveness has been rereleased this month. It’s got a beautiful new cover and some updates on the inside. 

When you give a gift of any amount to the ministry this month, we will send you your copy. You can make a gift by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. 

We live in a constant world of change and it’s getting easier with each minute to wish for what our friends have, to want the latest fashion, to long for a bigger house, the list goes on doesn’t it? We always want what we can’t have. Next week, we’ll explore our longings and talk about contentment with Sam Crabtree and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Thanks for listening today. Thanks to our team: Phil Krause, Blake Bratton, Rebekah Krause, Justin Converse, Michelle Hill, Erin Davis, and for Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh

Revive Our Hearts is calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

¹“Be Strong in the Lord.” Commonwealth Baptist College, Living by Faith. ℗ 2021 Commonwealth Baptist College.