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take them into the promised land because they were noncompliant with God. Acting on ungodly fear is noncompliance with God. II Timothy 1:7 tells us that God did not give us a spirit of fear. The Israelites of the book of Exodus had a spirit of fear. But Joshua and the Israelites of the book of Joshua did not have a spirit of fear. Not that they did not feel fear, but they did not let fear stop them from cooperating with God's moves to drive out their enemies from the promised land. When you move into the promised land (maturity), it is a fight. Maturity is a life fully submitted to God that seeks to express the truth and love of God in all areas (Ephesians 4:15). The kingdom of Darkness does not want members of the kingdom of Light to mature, so there will be fighting. A courageous team can face the enemy and not flee in fear. One of the root definitions of fear is to take flight. The Israelites in the book of Joshua kept pressing forward until the enemies were conquered and the land divided among the Israelite tribes.

If you do not have confidence in someone, you are not going to press forward with them. Sometimes management will ask you to do things that do not make sense because you do not have all the information. God is all knowing. He has all the information. Human beings are not all knowing. Sometimes God asks us to do things that do not make sense. God asked the Israelites in Joshua 6 to do something that did not make sense. God asked them to fight Jericho by marching around the city's walls once for six days with seven priests before the ark of the covenant with seven trumpets, and on the seventh day they were to march around Jericho seven times. When the priests made a long blast with a ram's horn, then the people were to shout, Jericho's wall were to fall and the Israelites were to step into Jericho. Whoever heard of such a battle plan? But if you have confidence in God, whatever He tells you to do, you will do it, not because of the plan but because you have confidence in the character of the person designing the plan to be able to execute it.

Confidence goes both ways. As you become more confident in God, He is released to show more confidence in you. Joshua asked God to stop the sun and moon from going down for about a whole day so that the Israelites could defeat the Amorites (Joshua 10:12-14). What a bold prayer (conversation with God)! God likes bold prayers and answered Joshua's bold prayer request affirmatively. You should be able to ask

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