Advent Day 1

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened; and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:9)

People talk a lot about manifesting these days: manifest your best life. Set your mind against fear, and you’ll arrive at peace. Clear your head, meditate with consistency, wait patiently, and your hopes will fulfill themselves.

Unfortunately, Joshua 1:9 is often read in manifestation mode. Just like the season of Advent, we take God’s commandment to be courageous as something to muster up rather than something revealed to us. So we pull out our Christmas trees, we decorate the house, we feign cheer and good tidings, just as we attempt to manifest our own courage.

But God isn’t commanding Joshua to pull courage from thin air. Instead, the courage God commands––and the end of fear––is based on the surety of the promises that precede it:

Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you (Josh. 1:3-6).

This isn’t the first time God has made this promise: “Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” From the very beginning, despite their rebellion and their fear, God has been with his people. He has sought them out (Gen. 3:9), he has remembered them (Gen. 8:1), he has blessed them (Gen. 12:1-3), he has delivered them from slavery, and he has gone before them (Deut. 31:3).

In the midst of your uncertainty, your terror, and the fight that is life, God does the same for you as he did for Joshua: he does not leave you, nor does he forsake you. He doesn’t ask you to be courageous on your own. In this season of Advent, you are reminded that through a baby born in a manger, fear no longer has any power; you are his, and his strength is yours.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. You are permitted to use the accompanying 2024 Advent and Christmas Sermon Guide or the Digital Download of this Advent 2024 Devotional in your church or ministry for free, as long as you do not charge for any of the 2024 1517 Advent Resources, or use them for any commercial purpose.

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