July’s theme, Be of good courage, is important in our spiritual development because we cannot allow fear to dominate our lives. Courage is the ability to stay focused and function effectively during dangerous and challenging times. We must be able to face our fears and realize if we trust in the God of Israel everything will be all right.
Courage is not necessarily the absence of fear. Courage is the ability to act responsibly and effectively in spite of fear. Without courage , fear will have a paralyzing effect on our lives and we will remain in unfavorable and unprofitable situations in life simply because we are too fearful to even attempt to change what is going on in our lives. Courage will give us the mindset to try and do something different instead of staying put or doing the same thing thereby allowing the inevitable destruction to happen to us. Courage is a necessary character trait we must possess if we desire to perform the will of the God of Israel
How do we obtain good courage ? I believe to obtain good courage we must believe in the God of Israel within us. This is why it is so important to develop a relationship with the God of Israel within you. Prayer and meditation is also key. We also must believe in ourselves. It is going to be extremely hard to have courage if we do not believe in ourselves for this is where the God of Israel lives , within us. We also must do our best to live righteously. The God of Israel has stated he will not leave us or forsake us and we must have confidence that he will do what he has said. Our testimonies also should give us courage because we know that if he has already performed it once for us or one of our brothers or sisters, he can do it again.
During times of sickness , death of loved ones and other trials and tribulations of this life experience, it is courage that we must tap into in order to overcome. We are taught by the men and women of the God of Israel to “Fear not , for I have redeemed thee”. During this time of pandemic and confusion in the world we as Israel must have the courage to believe the God of Israel will keep and protect us. We cannot allow fear to keep us from our service and commitment to one another. As the Psalmist recorded in Psalms 27:1. “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear. The Lord is the strength of my life , of whom shall I be afraid
Peace
Bishop Harvey Beavers Jr.