If God tells you something three times in the span of eighteen verses, it is worth paying attention to. In Joshua chapter one, God says the same thing to Joshua three separate times: be strong and courageous. Not once as an encouragement, not twice as emphasis, but three times — and the repetition is not accidental. It is diagnostic. God is not repeating Himself because Joshua failed to hear Him. He is repeating Himself because what lies ahead is genuinely difficult, and He wants Joshua to understand something important before the journey begins.
The command is not a description of how Joshua feels. It is a description of how Joshua is to act regardless of how he feels.
This is a distinction we regularly collapse in our reading of scripture and in our understanding of the Christian life. We tend to treat courage as an emotional state — something we either have or we don't, something that arrives when circumstances align favorably or when faith reaches a sufficient intensity. But that is not how God frames it here. He does not say "you will feel strong and courageous." He says "be strong and courageous." The verb is imperative. It is a command, not a promise about emotional experience. And commands are given precisely because the natural default runs in the opposite direction.
Joshua had every reason to feel the weight of what he was being asked to do. He was stepping into the role of Moses — one of the most towering figures in the entire Old Testament, the man through whom God delivered an entire nation from slavery, parted a sea, and transmitted the law from Sinai. The shadow Moses cast was enormous. Joshua had also spent forty years in the wilderness watching an entire generation die because of their failure to trust God at the threshold of the very land he was now being asked to lead the next generation into. He understood, better than almost anyone alive, what the cost of disobedience looked like. He understood the weight of leadership and the fragility of human faithfulness.
And God looked at all of that — the history, the weight, the legitimate reasons for hesitation — and said: be strong and courageous anyway.
The command comes with a reason, and the reason is everything. God does not say be strong and courageous because you are capable, because the odds are in your favor, or because the opposition is weak. He says be strong and courageous because I will be with you. The foundation of the command is not Joshua's competence. It is God's presence. "As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you." The courage God calls for is not self-generated. It is a response to a promise.
This reframes the entire conversation. When we are tempted to use fear and discouragement as evidence that we are outside of God's will, we are misreading the data. Fear is not a sign that God has abandoned us or that we have taken a wrong turn. It is often simply the natural human response to standing at the edge of something that genuinely matters, something that is genuinely hard, something where the stakes are real. The presence of fear does not disqualify us from obedience. It is frequently the very context in which obedience becomes meaningful.
God does not say to Joshua "do not feel afraid." He says "do not be afraid" — meaning, do not let fear govern your movement. Do not allow discouragement to become the deciding voice. Feel what you feel, and then act on the promise rather than the feeling. The Promised Land was on the other side of the Jordan, and the Jordan was not going to part because Joshua had achieved a sufficient level of emotional confidence. It was going to part because God said it would, and because Joshua stepped toward it in obedience.
We live on this side of the resurrection, and the promise we stand on is even firmer than the one Joshua received. We have not simply been told that God will be with us the way He was with Moses. We have been given the Holy Spirit as a permanent indwelling presence, the guarantee of an inheritance that cannot be shaken. The courage God calls us to is not manufactured from within. It is drawn from the settled reality of who He is and what He has already done.
There will be moments in every life of genuine faith when the thing God is asking requires more than we feel we have. There will be thresholds that look like the Jordan — wide, swollen, and guarded by walled cities on the other side. In those moments, the answer is not to wait for the feeling of courage to arrive. The answer is to act on the promise that God has already given, to step toward the river, and to trust that the same God who spoke to Joshua is speaking still.
Be strong and courageous. Not because it is easy. Because He is with you.
Dr. William C.K. Yomes is the founding apologist of Faith Makes Sense and the Senior Pastor of Catalyst Community Church in Wilmington, Delaware. This article is part of his ongoing teaching ministry at Catalyst Community Church.