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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Joshua 14:12
“Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Amalekites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as He said.”
I love Caleb.
He was the other spy who with Joshua, went into the Promised Land the first time and came back and encouraged the people to ‘Go for it.’
But the people rebelled and so he and Joshua then had to go around and around in the wilderness for 40 years. They had been obedient to God; they were full of faith, and they did all they could to encourage the people. It wasn’t their fault the people rebelled. Yet they still had to stay out of the Promised Land for 40 years.
How would you feel? Bitterness growing deep within you each step of the way? Angry with everyone who had mistrusted you. Determined on revenge? Spiteful? Or would you just give up? “What’s the point of believing in God? What’s the point of being obedient if you just lose out, just like everyone else? I thought God was all-powerful. I thought God would change the hearts of people. I thought we should go in anyway. I give up.”
But Caleb didn’t. Oh yes, he never forgot. Every step for him became another step nearer the realisation of his expectation. Not to get even but to get his inheritance. Each step brought him one step nearer the fulfilment of the promise of God. He would wait for God’s timing - not his. While he waited, he would size up the real enemy, he would strategise his victory, and he would live in the belief that the hill country was his. What a man.
His ‘prime of life’, when he first spied out the land, would mature into dogged determination. “So here I am today 85 years old. I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out. I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then” (v 10 - 11). I’ll tell you what. I’d rather be on his side than against him. That was not just youthful ‘fighting talk’ - that was matter-of-fact maturity. Here is the steamroller fired up and moving off.
How had he maintained his resolve? The key is here: “I brought him back a report according to my convictions ... I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. So in that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly’” (v 7 - 9). He kept his eyes, his trust and his hope in God and in God alone and his faith, vision and commitment never wavered.
“Then Joshua blessed Caleb ... and gave him Hebron as his inheritance” (v 13). And the chapter ends ... “Then the land had rest from war.”
What a man. What a challenge he is to us.
Let us, like him, serve the Lord our God wholeheartedly and fully possess the Promised Land He has promised us.
Never ever give up until it is fully yours.
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