God told the Israelites He had given the Promised Land to them….they were to go in and take it. It was theirs. Twelve spies went in first to check things out. They came back with two reports.

One report by Joshua and Caleb was “The land is good and we are well able to take it.” As proof, they had returned with a cluster of grapes so large, it needed two men to carry it on a pole!

The other report by the remaining 10 spies was, “Yes, indeed the land is good, but the men are giants! And we are grasshoppers in their sight and ours, so no thank you.” (my paraphrase)

This disagreement caused the nation of Israel to wander in the wilderness for 40 years because they weren’t ready for war. Exodus 13:17-18

Is the church like this today? Are there two camps, one which says, “Let’s go, we are well able to take it,” and the other, which says, “Nope, too many giants?”

Which camp are you in? How long will you halt between two opinions?

Joshua and Caleb are waiting…and they will teach you how to do it, just like they taught faith and how to war to the second generation of Israelites. God gave them explicit instructions how to win the battle at Jericho. If God has already said you can, who are you to dispute with Him?

It seems to me that it takes a long time to train the human brain in the ways of faith. In the bible, it’s called renewing the mind. The natural mind cannot comprehend the things of God. 1 Cor. 2:14. Our minds must be made new, like our spirits have been made new when we were saved. And that takes time.

Ponder the Old Testament evidence from our great leaders of faith, who actually had a strong sense of their calling. Look at Moses, who sensed he was the deliverer of Israel, but at his first attempt at deliverance, he killed a man and had to flee. He stayed in the wilderness 40 years before God spoke to him again about it, that we see recorded. Joshua and Caleb had to wait for the nation to get ready to take their promised land. They were 80 years old. Joseph had dreams in his younger years that gave him an idea of what he was called to do, but it took a while and lots of obstacles along the way before he ever saw any inkling his dreams would really happen. It took many years for most of the heroes of faith to get to the place where God could release them into the fullness of it. That doesn’t take into consideration the timing of when a thing is scheduled to happen, but I marvel that any of us today think we can get saved and go right to any type of leadership positions. Our human minds are amazingly dense! I believe that is a result of sin and being taught in the ways of the world and not in the ways of the Kingdom of God. I find myself struggling to actually “see” spiritual things, and I have read the Bible through many times and am fairly astute in the scriptures. I even write books sharing the teachings God has given me. But there is more…I think there is always more to learn and to know about eternity, the Kingdom of God, and the ways of God.

Of the twelve spies, 10 made a bad decision and frightened the entire nation out of doing the will of God. We need to have the faith that if God tells us to do something, we indeed can do it! He is with us!