courage | From the Desk of Valson Abraham

How well do we “think God’s thoughts after Him” (Isaiah 55:8-9)? Our willingness and ability to do so determines our destiny to face life’s challenges. Otherwise, we will tend to live more like victims than victors.

We find a good example of this truth in Joshua 12. The Israelites have just faced the greatest challenge of all, the combined armed forces of 31 kings. Those kings included the dreaded King Sihon of the Amorites and the giant King Og of Bashan, known also for his strength, military prowess, handsome looks and charisma. He was so tall he needed a 13-foot bed. Their brutality and arrogance were enough to throw fear into ordinary people.

Ordinary people—that is, people who do not “think God’s thoughts after Him”—simply waver and walk away from such challenges. They doubt promises God gives to them of their Promised Land. They allow visible circumstances to define reality.

But these 31 kings took counsel against the Lord and His people, the Israelites, who had 400 years of the Lord’s promises behind them. What kind of God did the Israelites trust? Psalm 2 tells us that God regards anti-God kings with scorn. Think of a three-year-old child who crowns himself with a paper crown, robes himself in his “blankie” and proclaims himself king of the universe. Even this ridiculous image can never match our Lord’s scorn for 31 godless rulers.

Through many trials, the fickle Israelites under Joshua were coming to think God’s thoughts after Him. What a victory they won!

God looks for those among us who will trust Him for the impossible (1 Chronicles 16:9; Jeremiah 33:3). How often do we laugh in mockery at today’s enemies of God? Or do we merely tremble at them and pray for an escape hatch?

Do we lose sleep over godless enemies’ arrogance, or do we laugh at them knowing that their weapons really come from Satan and are no match for the weapons God has already given us through the cross of Christ? Do we know what our weapons are?

William Carey, the great pioneer missionary of India, preached, “Expect great things of God; attempt great things for God.”

That can happen only when we expect God to do unconventional things with and through unconventional people. Israel’s history is unconventional history. Israel’s history begins through a man and his wife who have a child at 100 and 90 years old. Later, we see Joseph rise from prison to power far from home. Think of the Red Sea miracle, and Joshua’s victories over Jericho, Ai, Adoni-bezek, and the 31 kings. How unconventional can you get?

God specializes in the impossible. He loves for us to trust Him for it. He loves to take weak and foolish people (like us) to confound the “mighty” Sihons and Ogs around us. He seeks weak, foolish and unconventional people, filled with Holy Spirit treasures in their “earthen vessels” to help defeat Satan and his arrogant puppets.

As we face life’s challenges, we do well to remember the example of Joshua and look back at times in our own lives when God did unconventional things in us—how He healed, saved, restored what seemed lost.

Let us think on these things, view our enemies with God’s eyes—and laugh!

3 Ways to Conquer What Looks Unbeatable

What does it take to defeat an enemy?

The Canaanites were not ordinary enemies. Few peoples in history have matched Canaanite depravity. They comprised a body of various peoples who became so devoted to evil that God decided they must go or they would corrupt the whole human race.

They practiced every kind of twisted sexual immorality, child sacrifice and idolatry. They were proud of it. Their ethic was violence. They were physically large, abnormally strong and lived in fortified cities no one had conquered, not even the Egyptians with their mighty armies. An earlier generation of Israelites saw them and felt like grasshoppers in their sight.

The Canaanites had never been brought to account for their depravity and thought they were stronger than God. Even after they heard how God delivered the Israelites at the Red Sea, they refused to repent. Things were getting worse, not better.

For 400 years, the Canaanites tried God’s patience, but even God’s patience wore thin. He called upon the Israelites to destroy them. For their trust and obedience, the land of the Canaanites would become their own “Promised Land” forever.

By worldly standards, the Israelites were an unlikely people to do this. They were former slaves, nomadic shepherds and wilderness wanderers, not military people. But even the Israelites could conquer the Canaanites and take their “Promised Land” if they fulfilled the following conditions:

They were to be strong and of good courage. They were to be strong and courageous in God, convinced He would do exactly what He promised them because He was stronger than the enemy. They were inadequate in themselves, but they were not to fear the ferocity of the enemy because God would never desert them.
They were to observe all of the Law. They were to remember the covenant God made with Abraham and Moses. They were to obey God in everything He asked of them. They were to learn how to think as God thinks, not follow their own instincts. They were to heed all God told them, even when it did not seem to make sense. They were not to get distracted by other things but always hold the promises of God before them. Faithfulness to obey all of God’s word to them would prevent needless heartaches and setbacks.
They were to know that wherever they went, God was with them to bring success. To stand together in unity and trust God alone and not their own ways was the only sure way to success, even against a fierce and evil enemy like the Canaanites.

God’s word to the Israelites in the face of a vicious foe remain true today as we work together to take the Good News to all of India. We face many foes who defy God and are stronger than we are, with vastly more resources than we. Yet God guarantees victory as we remain strong in Him and think His thoughts. We have His promise that through us, the Great Commission will be fulfilled, and the knowledge of the glory of the God will fill India and the whole earth.

May God’s words to Joshua also encourage and strengthen you in these days as you remember His promises to you in the midst of your own challenges from seemingly unbeatable foes.

From the Desk of Valson Abraham

Tag Archives: courage

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3 Ways to Conquer What Looks Unbeatable