Like Tom and Rich before me, narrowing down my favorite Bible verse is tricky, so instead of picking just one, I’m going to point to two that I lean on frequently. Both of the passages I have chosen are favorites as much for what they say as for when, in the overarching narrative of God’s Word, they say it. Context is important and for me, the context can be just as encouraging as the actual words. I find myself turning to two specific places when I want to be encouraged by how big and unchanging our God is and how He has prepared a place for His people. First in the Old Testament I turn specifically to Joshua.
Joshua 1:6 - 9 “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 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.”
In these three verses of Joshua 1, God commands Joshua to be strong and courageous three separate times. It can be easy to imagine the specific words being spoken directly to me – and I think for years, I did just that and had a misunderstanding of the beauty and power of these words – and I tried to will myself to ‘be strong and courageous’ in my own power. I could never accomplish that on my own.
Then several years ago I was coming through a particularly difficult season in my life while reading through the Bible. In case you’ve forgotten, this passage in Joshua follows the death of Moses, the end of 40 years of wandering in the desert, and the beginning of Joshua’s time as Israel’s leader. I finished reading Deuteronomy, mired in my own desert, but feeling, like Moses, I would only have a glimpse of the promised land. Then I started reading Joshua and these words sprung from the page. God – who walked with Moses, who strengthened Moses, who Moses leaned on for strength – that same God - still had an unending well of strength for Joshua!
The strength was God Himself. He reminded Joshua to meditate on the Book of the Law day and night – the very words that remind us of God’s character and love for us. This isn’t a command to buck up and gut it out. This is encouragement to seek God first, that the path to strength and courage is through God’s very heart. Oh, what Joy! I could be ‘lost’ in a wilderness, but if I looked to Christ, and God’s Word to be my strength and refuge, I could be strong and courageous, and at the end, I will be among those that inherit heaven.
Turning to the New Testament, most of you know of my great love for the book of Hebrews, so it will come as no surprise that I have a favorite verse that is encouraging from Hebrews. (As an aside, I encourage all of you to spend substantial time with one book, to get to know it, to study it, to let it wash over you through multiple seasons of life.)
Hebrews 9:24 – 28 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
As I said, I love the book of Hebrews and I know it well, so I could pick many passages as a ‘favorite’ but this one I come back to again and again. The author of Hebrews spends the book preaching about the Supremacy of Christ and this passage comes towards the end of the section explaining how Christ is the greater High Priest, a High Priest like no other, because Christ is King, Priest, and the greater sacrifice. This section is always encouraging to me because it reminds me that I have a High Priest in my savior, who lives even now, His work complete, and He is in heaven to intercede on my behalf. I can approach the throne of God boldly because I have a great High Priest in Christ who purchased me for his Father’s delight with His own blood. And Jesus, the great High Priest, will come again to save us and bring us into the ultimate promised land, a place of rest for the people of God, heaven itself.
Whenever I am certain I cannot continue to press on in this broken world, I turn to these two passages and I am reminded that God has had a promised land for me – since the beginning - and I have a great High Priest in Christ who has already opened the way for me.
