Courage is standard equipment by Pastor Ed Young

That brings us to the second step found in Joshua 1:9.  According to Ed Young Church that the Bible says “Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous…”  Circle that phrase, commanded you.  It is not an option.  Number two.  Realize that courage is standard equipment.  That is the second step.  Realize that courage is standard equipment, it is not optional.  “Well, I’ll take this, and maybe not that.”  When you buy a car some things are standard.  When you become a Christian courage is a standard, it is a basic, it is a given, it is a foundational principle.  And that is why God told Joshua, “Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous.”  But most of us, what we do is, we kind of collapse courage. According toEd Young that we have courage out when it is convenient to be courageous.  But then when peer pressure begins to circle, when everyone else is doing it, when everyone else is going there, when everyone else is getting drunk, when everyone else is having sex outside of marriage.  “Oh, I better fold this up and put it away and hide it.  Man, no, no, no.  I’ll just collapse courage.”  And then after that temptation passes and you fall to it, then, “OK, now I will bring courage back.  I’m around Christians now, I’ll be courageous, you see, I’m for God.  I’m really a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Sound familiar?

Ed Young Pastor – Here’s the third one.  Face your lions.  Do the Gunther Gable Williams thing. Daniel 6:22.  “My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions…”  Daniel faces these snaggle-toothed, bad-breathed, 1200 pound king of the jungle type things breathing down his neck for hours, and hours, and hours, and hours.  In Joshua 1:9 it says “Do not be terrified…”