Are you camping or crossing?
Let’s take a look at faith in relation to crossing over into what God has promised us.
In Numbers 13, God tells Moses to send spies into the land of Canaan to find out:
“What the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? 20 How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not?”
He picked out 12 spies–One from each tribe. They go and come back with some fruit of the land and bring a report…
Yet the question is, why? God knew what was there. So why did God have Moses send out the spies? Could it be that even though they had heard about it and talked about it, God wanted them to see the promised land, and to experience it?
It is so easy to talk about the promises of God–almost in passing. Some how we have become comfortable with knowing that God’s promises are there with out experiencing them. I don’t want to just talk about the promises. I want to enter into those promises. I want to taste and see that the Lord is good!
God was showing them what he had promised was there for them to take. Two of them saw it. Ten of them missed it.
Spies like us
Ten of the guys saw the size of the men and the strength of people that lived there. They saw the situation and all of the reason why it could not happen. They saw their weakness and assessed it from that perspective. Caleb and Joshua saw it differently. They saw an opportunity to obtain the promise of God. Instead of seeing their own weakness they saw and rested in the strength of God.
Listen to what Caleb says in response to the concerns of the other spies:
30 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”
Awesome! Caleb is looking through the eyes of faith. He sees the the situation, compares it to God, and sees that those men, those obstacles were no match for God. Then the ten spies say:
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Sigh… these guys. They show up whenever something that requires faith is about to happen and too many times we listen. Yet sometime we are those guys. God calls us forth and says take the land and we hesitate, focusing on how small we feel in comparison to the greatness that is set before us.
Should I stay or should I go?
So many times we are faced with the choice of staying where we are or moving forward into the promise of God. Are we going to stay on the safe side of the river of cross over into the risky place. The place that seems risky because we have never been there. Yet in truth it is not risky at all… because if God promised it to us, you can bank on it.
Later on in chapter 14 the Lord says this about Caleb:
…My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it…
Caleb had a different spirit. He had an attitude of the heart that was steadfast, immoveable and convinced that God was able to to deliver on His promise. Let us say amen to that.
A Prayer for faith
Lord, give me a different spirit. One that is different then the world’s. One that is different from the fearful mob. One that is different from the one I have when I doubt what can be done through faith. Help my overcome our unbelief. Increase my faith!
Questions for Consideration:
What are the promises that God has spoken to me?
What are the things that appear to be barriers to those promises?
Are there places where I have decided to camp instead of moving forward?
What role does fear play in my choice to camp?
What are the first steps I can take to break camp and start again towards the promises of God?
Leave comments below!
