Living wholeheartedly for God, Nothing Held Back: The life of Caleb
Numbers 13:1-4 The lord tells Moses to send our spies to scout the land God has promised them.
- From verses 17 to 20 Moses gives them some basic instructions. Where to go, what to look for etc.
- Then from verses 21 to 24 it gives a brief report of where they went and what they saw.
- Verse 25 tells us that they explored for 40 days.
- Verse 23 tells us they had a cluster of grapes that they carried on a pole between two men.
- And it says they also had some pomegranates.
Verse 26 The spies bring back a report of the land.
Verse 27 They see the goodness of the land. They have the fruit of the land in their hands.
Verse 28 But they also see the obstacles and fear immediately sets in.
- The root of the Hebrew word Anak used here means, “to be Tall” or “to be long necked.”
- Grammatically the word is a noun, but they are using it as an adjective.
Verse 29 They notice the specific locations of all the enemy nations.
- But they didn’t seem to have the same kind of detail for where the fruit and goodness came from.
Verse 30 Caleb shows real leadership and steps up and tries to stop the crowd’s fear.
Verse 31 We see the fear and uncertainty kick in. They only see the size of their enemy.
- They don’t see the size of the blessings and Goodness promised by God. They have also forgotten the promise.
Verse 32 The fear lends itself to bad behavior. Lies and hyperbole.
- It says they spread a bad report. The Hebrew word used here means, “to slander or defame.”
- Their fear has given them over to lying.
Verse 33 Those stirring up dissention now claim that they saw the Nephilim in the land.
- The Nephilim are mentioned in Genessis 6 right before the flood of Noah’s day.
- They don’t seem to be mentioned in the bible again until here in this verse.
Let’s go back to verse one: God tells them to do this and yet they still give in to fear and a willingness to settle for less than what God has promised for them because they would have to risk.
Joshua 14:8 It says that Caleb lived wholeheartedly for the Lord as compared to those that lived in fear.
- The Hebrew word used here means “to be full.”
- The YLT translation picks up on this. “I have been fully after Jehovah my God.” (YLT)
- Living wholeheartedly or fully for the for the Lord seems to stand in contrast to fear, safety, complacency, comfort.
Life lessons and take aways for all of us.
- Remember the promises of God and the call of God.
- Don’t give into the worst-case scenario thinking and mind set.
- Remember what God has already done in the difficult moments of the past.
- You are never too old. (Or too young)
- The promises of God are worth fighting for.
- What gets in the way of fully living for God? Ask honest quotes of ourselves.