Daily Huddle - Thu Jun 18, 2020 Any Caleb In You?

Love you all, praying for you,
 
I just love God’s Word.  It is truth and life.  It’s examples of faithful and unfaithful.  It’s the story of God’s love for you, and His promises for your good.  I love the stories of the great men and women of old.  Those who put their faith in God.  There are the famous ones, and then there are those who aren’t that famous – but whose lives contain examples for us to follow.  Caleb was one of those people.  He wasn’t an Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, not a Moses or a Joshua, but he like David, fulfilled his purpose in his generation.  He was an example of faith in a sea of doubt and unbelief.  Born a slave – 75 years of his life was hardship.  He knew the glare and heat of the hot sun, he knew the lash of the slavers whip.  He knew what is was to get married, and bring children into a world – where most likely they like he and his father and grandfather and great grandfather before him – would never know a day of freedom in their entire lifetime!  Then comes this guy Moses – who spoke of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Caleb saw the miracles brought against Eqypt.  He saw the day that no one would have ever dreamed.  The entire nation walking out with their families, their livestock and the wealth of their captors.  He saw the quick end of the dream – when Pharaoh's army pursued.  Wondering how he would defend his family from a brutal death.  And then God made the Red Sea stand up on end, and 1.2 million people walked through on dry ground – and watched as their pursuers ill-advisedly tried the same, only to have the waters sweep over them – as an everlasting grave.  He was in his early 30’s.  All he knew was hardship his entire life.  When the nation came to the border of the land God had promised.  Caleb was one of the 12 spies that surveyed the land.  While the rest save Joshua, saw the fortified cities with walls to the sky, and the giants in the land, he saw the fields, the vineyards and the harvest and the promise of God.  Caleb’s Name means forcible – tenacious like a dog with a bone or a toy - who refuses to let go.  That’s Caleb.  It’s why He took the High Country – His God-promised inheritance - at age 80.  Armies and fortresses and giants didn’t deter him.  He had some Caleb in Him.  He saw the Omnipotence of God, not the obstacles of man.  His faith and His hope were in God’s power and God’s promise.  He had a hold of that bone – and He wasn’t letting go.  It wasn’t his jaw strength – He had a different spirit about him.  He was from the tribe of Judah – the tribe of Praise…  When the spies brought back their report of fear.  Caleb spoke in faith.  They said – We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey!  Here's the  fruit.  But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.  We even saw the descendants of Anak there…  But Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it."  But the other spies over talked them – “The land we explored devours those living in it.  All the people we saw there are of great size… we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.  That’s the problem right there, whose eyes do you see yourself through.  The people grumbled and complained, if only we had stayed in Eqypt…  Caleb with Joshua tore their clothes and spoke again…  “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good.  If the LORD is please with us, He will lead us into that land, because we will swallow them up.  Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us.  Do not be afraid of them."  But when they talked of stoning Moses, Caleb and Joshua – God had enough.  He would have put an end to them, had Moses not intervened.  He spared the lives of the people – but they wandered in the wilderness for 40 more years - and Caleb was stuck with them.  God said - not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times – not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers.  No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.  But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly.  I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.  If you have a little Caleb in you – you will be from the tribe of praise, you will have a different spirit – you will follow God wholeheartedly.  So Caleb after 35 years a slave, then spends 40 more years in the desert because of the unbelief of the people.  And at 75 years old they took possession of the land.  After that five year campaign.  Caleb was given the land of Kiriath Arba – Hebron – the high country - as his inheritance.  The land of the three sons of Anak – the giants that the spies had once feared - and he took it.  Do you have a little Caleb in you?  Are you of a different Spirit?  Is the Holy Spirit mighty in you – as He was in Caleb?  What are you tenacious about?  Are you tenacious like Caleb in following the LORD wholeheartedly?  Praying that you will be tenacious in PiVAT – so you can follow wholeheartedly what God has assigned to you in this hour!  That you would be tenacious in PRISM – to know the heart of God, His love and truth, His wisdom and His good for you. Praying that you are tenacious in 4C’s obeying with His money – that you are tenacious in your Daily Call – overcoming with your testimony, and in your PiVAT Small Group – provoking one another to obedience, in the good works that God has prepared for you.  Praying that you’ll have the spirit of the living God, like Caleb – that you’ll see God’s promises, not the obstacles.  That you’ll have a little Caleb in you.
 
Love you all,
dad