When you think of courage, what comes to mind? Maybe you think of a soldier running into battle or a student standing up to the school yard bully. Michael Anthony shares a fresh perspective on what it means to be courageous.

“Courage is speaking truth and love together. Or living and modeling truth and love. In the divine equation, it’s not one or the other, truth or love. It’s truth and love, Paul talks about that in Ephesians 4.”

Being courageous isn’t just about telling someone the truth, even if it hurts. It’s about telling the truth in love. This takes humility.

“Most of the lessons I’ve learned in life I’ve learned from my own failure. When you look in the Bible and you look at people that God used consistently and powerfully, you always see that person had a combination of humility and courage. You never see one without the other. They were able to live and speak the truth in love, both of them together.”

“These are things that don’t need to elude you anymore. There are practical things you can do every day to develop your ‘courage quotient,’ to learn how to have greater courage, greater humility, and therefore greater impact for the Lord in your personal, life, your family, and your church.”

Michael says courage also means being willing to love and appreciate someone who you disagree with.

“One of the things we need to rediscover as Christians is agreeing with somebody is one thing, being nice to somebody even if we don’t share their opinion doesn’t mean we are condoning their behavior or philosophy, it just means you’re being kind. This is what we see in the Scriptures, we see Jesus being kind to the sinners. In fact, the people he hit the hardest were the hypocrites, the Pharisees, and the leaders of the nation of Israel.”

“I think when all of the cannons stop firing, we are called to love people, even love our enemies. That’s the number one thing that needs to be re-discovered in this awakening, this movement of repentance that needs to happen around the nation.”

In what way is God calling you to live your life with courage and conviction?


Michael Anthony is a popular speaker and blogger, founder and president of Godfactor®, founder of the National Week of Repentance™, and lead pastor of Grace Fellowship in York, Pennsylvania. He lives with his family in York, Pennsylvania.

Michael Anthony on living in an age of intolerance and fear