And they returned from spying out the land after forty days. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.” 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.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” (Numbers 13:25-33)
Only two out of the twelve spies that went to take a look at the land God promised Israel had a positive report to bring back to Moses. Joshua and Caleb had an attitude of faith. The other ten spies were steeped in the tradition of doubt and unbelief.
Unbelief looks at obstacles. Faith looks at God and His promises! What kind of report do you have of your life and your circumstances today? Do you have a God sized attitude, or do you have grasshopper vision?
With only human ability in view, the ten spies said they looked like grasshoppers beside the giants. Yet Joshua and Caleb sized up the circumstance in comparison to God and said, we are well able to overcome them!
Doubt and fear looks at the size of the problem. Faith looks at the bigness and greatness of God.
On what side of life’s equation will you and I stand today? We you stand with doubt, fear and unbelief, and be held back by feelings and thoughts that oppose the promises of God? Or will we like Joshua and Caleb resist doubt, fear, and unbelief, and move forward expecting God to honor His Word to us?
Of the twelve spies that went into Canaan to check it out, only two survived the wilderness experience produced by the blinding, fear producing unbelief of the ten spies’ negative report. Only Joshua and Caleb entered into the inheritance that God had for them.
Today is a new day. Look to God’s amazing promises where He says all things are possible to him who believes. Look away from the negative, creeping, choking unbelief that seeks to pull you back into bondage to fear, sickness, bad habits, your past, and sin.
Allow God’s Word today to build you up. You and God are a majority! Greater is He who is in you than he that is in the world! Take your eyes off of your problems, and place them on God, His promises, His faithfulness, and His love! All things are possible to him who believes!