Today we look, yet again, at how we value God’s Word and how God desires for His Word to function in our lives. We read for relationship, we read to abide in that relationship and we read to respond within that relationship through obedience. Obedience is more than doing what we are told, obedience is following God’s direction while trusting God’s character and desiring God’s will. Obedience is wanting more than blessing, it is wanting transformation, obedience is at its fullest measure when our greatest desire is to not only do what God says but to fulfill God’s will by being conformed to the very image of Jesus. We have been using Deuteronomy 3:28 as our guide toward obedience. When God told Moses to no longer plead with Him about going into the Promised Land but to instead turn His attention to preparing Joshua to lead Israel He gave Him three specific tasks: to command, encourage and strengthen Joshua. We have seen that the call to command was a call to tell Joshua everything that God had spoken, to share God’s Word, God’s heart and God’s character with Joshua through conversation. Teaching God’s Word is only the beginning of our path to obedience, next we must choose to talk about it. Moses commanded all of Israel to talk of God’s commands “when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.” Conversations that are built from the Scriptures and shared because of the Scriptures are an important step toward obedience. We must talk about the Word of God more. We learned last week that encouragement is not the alleviation of anxiety, fear, worry or sorrow but instead, encouragement is the building of strength through the establishment of faith. Encouragement is not meant to make us feel better it is meant to make us strong. Encouragement’s goal is to propel us toward obedience, to give us the strength to endure the hard places and to do the difficult things in life. Encouragement is tied to discipline because encouragement is about helping someone do something in the present that will prepare them for the future. Moses encouraged Joshua by taking him into the tent of meeting, by sharing God’s voice and God’s commands and by preparing him for the enemies, opposition and difficulty he would face when he led Israel over the Jordan River to the Promised Land. Encouragement can’t ever justify sinful behavior, comfort stubbornness or appease selfishness because encouragement must always seek God’s will, that we would all be conformed into the image of Jesus. Encouragement leads us to the third task on the path to obedience, courage. Conversations focus our attention on Scripture, encouragement builds up our strength through Scripture and courage is out trust in God to obey Scripture. We will never be obedient without strength and courage, today we will concentrate on learning that courage is the outcome of trust.