A Serious Call to Spiritual Leadership
By Dr. Franklin L. Kirksey
While returning some books that
I had borrowed from Rev. Alvin Sullivan, his wife,
Delores, who was my sixth grade teacher at Greystone
Christian School in Mobile, Alabama, came out to
greet me. After a hug she quoted
from memory a verse that came to her mind, “ . . .
Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid,
neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is
with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
I sensed that this was a word for me from the
Lord. After making my way to the
car, I quickly found the verse was Joshua 1:9, which
I read several times and meditated on it all the way
home. As Solomon exclaims, “A
word spoken in due season, how good is it!”
(Proverbs 15:23)
The occasion of Joshua 1:9 is
when Israel experienced a change of leadership.
Joshua, a lieutenant under Moses, becomes the
human leader of the people after Moses’ death.
Suddenly Joshua finds himself thrust into a
position that will be most demanding and dangerous.
As he stands on the threshold of this new
assignment he is solemnly charged, “Have I not
commanded you?” (v. 9a). This
phrase serves as a premise to the rest of the verse.
God is reminding Joshua of a previous
command. Oh, how He often
graciously repeats His commands!
It is indeed heartening to realize that God’s
commandments are His enablements.
In Joshua 1:9 we move from this
reminder of a divine injunction (command, directive
or order) to the reiteration of a divine
instruction. The practice that is
commanded is stated positively “Be strong and of
good courage . . .” (v. 9b) and then negatively “ .
. .do not be afraid nor dismayed . . .” (v. 9c).
In the words of a popular song Joshua was to
“accentuate the positive” and to “eliminate the
negative.” Moses gave this same
instruction to Joshua at his inauguration recorded
in Deuteronomy 31:6-7,23. God
told Joshua three times to be strong and courageous
(Joshua 1:6-7,9,18), which reminds us that in the
heat of battle it is easy to forget the orders from
headquarters.
Marion Robert Morrison also
known as John Wayne reportedly said, “Courage is
being scared to death – but saddling up anyway.”
There are over 300 instances in the Bible
where God says, “Do not be afraid” or “Do not fear.”
We should remember, when a man is under God’s
orders and protection he has no reason to fear
anything.
Finally, Joshua received a
promise, “ . . .for the LORD your God is with you
wherever you go” (v. 9d). This
phrase is the reassurance of a divine intervention
much like the words of Hebrews 13:5-6, which says,
“For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you
nor forsake you.’ So we may
boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear.
What can man do to me?’”
During a message at the 47th
Moody Founder’s Week Conference, Vance Havner
shared, “I heard a missionary say the other day, the
trouble is that too many folks are singing ‘Standing
on the Promises’, when they are just sitting on the
premises!”
In his classic titled The
Disciplines of Life, Dr. V. Raymond Edman explains,
“the discipline of daring [is] to discern one’s
duty, to do God’s bidding, to delight in His
presence, to depend upon His promise, to discover
His power as we obey His word . . .”
The New Testament counterpart
to the book of Joshua is the book of Ephesians and
it is here that we receive our commission to conquer
our Canaan and to possess our possessions in a
spiritual sense. Daily God issues
a serious call to spiritual leadership.
By Dr. Franklin L. Kirksey,
pastor
First Baptist Church of Spanish
Fort
P.O. Box 7111
Spanish Fort, Alabama 36577
fkirksey@bellsouth.net
(251) 626-6210
© July 16, 2005
All Rights Reserved
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