A Proper Perspective.
As a kid, I remember looking through my brother’s old high school yearbook. Under everyone’s pictures were little descriptions, memories, and, for many of them, their “favorite Bible verse.” I remember reading through those verses. Most were inspirational. They were verses about overcoming obstacles, facing the future, being strong, and believing that no matter what happened, everything would somehow work out.
Years later, I understand why we gravitate toward those verses. We want the Bible to inspire us. And without even realizing it, many of us open Scripture looking for a particular message: “You can do it.” Whatever challenge is in front of us, we want God to say, You’ve got this. Keep going. Believe. You’re stronger than you think.
This morning, as I finished reading through Joshua on our trip, something struck me. Some of the most popular “you can do it” verses come from Joshua. “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life” (Joshua 1:5). “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you” (Joshua 1:3). “Be strong and of good courage” (Joshua 1:6). Read individually, these verses can sound like God is giving Joshua the ultimate motivational speech: Joshua, believe in yourself. You can do this.
But that is not what God says. In fact, the message of Joshua—and really, the message of the entire Bible—is not “You can do it.” It is “I will do it.”
Look again at Joshua 1:5: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.” Joshua’s confidence was never supposed to come from Joshua. God was essentially saying, Joshua, remember what you saw Me do through Moses? Remember Egypt? Remember the Red Sea? Remember the wilderness? What I did for and through Moses, I will continue to do for and through you.
That is why no one would be able to stand against Joshua. Not because Joshua was unstoppable, but because God’s promise was.
That same confidence appears decades later when Caleb approaches Joshua. Caleb is eighty-five years old, and there are still giants in the land. Yet he says, “Give me this mountain” (Joshua 14:12). That sounds like incredible self-confidence until you keep reading. Caleb says, “It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the LORD said.” There it is again. Caleb wasn’t saying, I can do this. He was saying, God said He would do this. His confidence wasn’t in his strength. It was in God’s promise.
And when you reach the end of Joshua, God tells Israel how they arrived where they were: “I took your father Abraham… I sent Moses and Aaron… I plagued Egypt… I brought you out… I brought you into the land… I delivered them into your hand… I gave you a land for which you did not labor” (Joshua 24:3–13). I took. I sent. I brought. I delivered. I gave.
The book may be called Joshua, but Joshua isn’t really the hero. God is. Joshua is not primarily the story of what Israel accomplished for God. It is the story of what God faithfully accomplished for Israel. That is why one verse summarizes the entire book so beautifully: “Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass” (Joshua 21:45). Not one failed.
Maybe that is the message we have been missing. We sometimes think that if we stop telling people, “You can do it,” they will stop trying. We fear that emphasizing what God does will somehow produce passive Christians. But Joshua shows us the exact opposite. God’s “I will do it” didn’t cause Israel to sit down. It gave them the courage to stand up.
They crossed rivers. They marched around walls. They faced armies. They fought giants. They obeyed—not because they had discovered greater confidence in themselves, but because they had discovered greater confidence in God. Faith did not replace obedience. Faith produced it.
Maybe we have misunderstood love in the same way. We often say, “If you really love God, you’ll change.” “If you really love Jesus, you’ll obey.” “If you loved Him enough, you would do more for Him.” After all, don’t we change for the people we love?
But once again, Scripture turns our eyes away from ourselves. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us” (1 John 4:10). And “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The Bible’s definition of love doesn’t begin with what we do for God. It begins with what God has done for us.
Perhaps the deepest transformation doesn’t happen when someone keeps telling us that we need to love God more. It happens when we finally begin to understand how deeply God already loves us. The Bible was never given merely to inspire better versions of ourselves. It was given to reveal a faithful God.
So maybe instead of opening Scripture asking, “What does this tell me I can do?” we should begin asking, “What does this reveal about what God has done, what God is doing, and what God has promised to do?”
Because from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible keeps turning our eyes away from human ability and toward divine faithfulness. The great message of Scripture is not “You can do it.” It is “I will do it.”
And when we finally believe that, perhaps we will discover that trusting His promise does not make us less courageous, less faithful, or less obedient. It gives us a reason to move forward when our own strength runs out. Because our confidence was never supposed to be in ourselves. Our confidence is in the God whose promises do not fail.
Let’s read the Bible correctly.
What if the Bible’s message isn’t “You can do it,” but “I will do it”?
The Journey takes you through the story of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, showing how this simple shift changes the way we understand the Bible—and the way we see God. Instead of reading Scripture primarily as stories about what people must do for God, you’ll begin to see one unfolding story of what God has promised, what God has done, and what God will ultimately accomplish.
If you’re ready to see the Bible as one connected story of God’s faithfulness, purchase The Journey and begin seeing Scripture differently.
This study will change your life. I Promise.
Daniel Jeon is an author and Bible teacher whose passion for Scripture was born through tragedy. After losing his father at a young age, Daniel developed a deep thirst to understand the Bible for himself—a journey that eventually led him to see Scripture not as a collection of disconnected stories and doctrines, but as one continuous story centered on Jesus and the faithfulness of God. This became the foundation of Jeology—the study of Jesus—a simple approach that helps people discover patterns, repetition, and connections throughout Scripture. Today, Daniel teaches Jeology around the world, helping people understand the Bible for themselves and share it with others.
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