Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Then the children of Judah came near to Joshua in Gilgal. Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know the thing that Yahweh spoke to Moses the man of God concerning me and concerning you in Kadesh Barnea. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of Yahweh sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. I brought him word again as it was in my heart. Nevertheless, my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; but I wholly followed Yahweh my God. Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land where you walked shall be an inheritance to you and to your children forever, because you have wholly followed Yahweh my God.’ “Now, behold, Yahweh has kept me alive, as he spoke, these forty-five years, from the time that Yahweh spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. Now, behold, I am eighty-five years old, today. As yet I am as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me. As my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, to go out and to come in.Now therefore give me this hill country, of which Yahweh spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and great and fortified cities. It may be that Yahweh will be with me, and I shall drive them out, as Yahweh said.””
(Joshua 12:1-6)

“Take away the wicked from the king’s presence,
    and his throne will be established in righteousness.
Don’t exalt yourself in the presence of the king,
    or claim a place among great men;
for it is better that it be said to you, “Come up here,”
    than that you should be put lower in the presence of the prince,
    whom your eyes have seen.”
(Proverbs 25:5-7)

Caleb didn’t do anything so miraculously amazingly stupendous. All he did was believe God. Yet that IS different. Only two of the twelve spies believed God. Everyone else put more trust in what their eyes saw than in what God said. As a result, both groups got exactly what they believed in. Ten spies did not enter the Land. Two of them did. Caleb was one of them. He never put himself forward as being awesome. He only told the simple truth. He told what he did. He remembered what Moses said. He was not proud – even now as he entered the Land he believed he would need the Lord to accomplish anything. Caleb humbled himself before the Lord and as a result, enjoyed the blessing of the Lord. He got his fair share of the Land.

God removed the wicked generation by keeping them in the desert until they died. Not one of them got to participate in the establishment of God’s righteous kingdom for His people – except Joshua and Caleb who NEVER lost trust in God and refused to participate in the refusal to defy God. Those who were raised to trust in God as their Source were the ones who went up to take the Land. They had had to trust God for their food, their water, their security, their guidance, and their rest. They were not perfect in their obedience (who is?), but they were willing to trust God and let Him decide who got what, where, and how. They had grown up learning the lesson of trust, and if they held to it all would be well with them. Caleb was an awesome example to them of how it could be.

Summary

Believing is not enough. Trusting is not enough. ACTING on that belief and trust is what we need to do. If we REALLY trust and we REALLY believe, we’ll ACT like it. We’ll TALK like it. Ask anyone who is convinced about their opinion – even if it is ridiculous. They will back up their belief and their trust in their reasoning 100%. We need to do the same. If you claim to trust, but don’t act like it, you prove you have no trust. If you claim to believe, but act contrary to what you claim to believe, you prove you do not in fact believe. Belief and trust produce actions and words that are born from belief and trust. Caleb is an excellent example of this. He trusted, he believed, and he didn’t waver in action or words until he got to put them into practice. This is exactly how we should live.