And YHVH said, … ” My servant Caleb, because there hath been another spirit with him, and he is fully after Me… ”
Numbers 14:24 (Bold –YLT)
When Moses sent twelve men in to spy out the land promised to them by God, they all returned declaring the goodness and exceeding abundance of the land (Num. 13:23-27), but 10 of them (the number of the Law) lowered their vision from the awesome powerful God who had delivered them by His Grace with a strong powerful hand from the domination slavery of Egypt, to now seeing their own small selves in view of the size of the giants dwelling inside their Divinely promised inheritance. And seeing themselves in such comparison reduced the Grace-truth reality of so great a Savior to now looking at their own inability to be able to acquire this huge, Divine promise, a promise only able to be gained by faith … not by works (self effort) of the Law (Rom. 4:14 & 16a) … they forgot that their monster deliverance to begin with had had nothing whatsoever to do with their same inability to bring about such freedom .
But Caleb, along with Joshua, did not forget unmerited, undeserved, unearned favor.
Then Caleb quieted (lit. also “hushed“) the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.” … Caleb the son of Jephunneh … spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, “The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us …” excrpt frm. Numbers 13:30, 14:6-8 (NASB)
Caleb’s faith was wholly on the LORD’s unmerited favor already having been demonstrated in their deliverance from out of Egyptian bondage. God’s dealings to and for His people were wholly based upon His good pleasure to pour out of who He is – full of Grace, full of Love – to show forth of His exceeding goodness, all of which has absolutely nothing to do with human effort to earn even an ounce of it!
What set Caleb apart in the eyes of the LORD was his confession of His grace and favor towards them all. Caleb’s words were Caleb’s very breath voicing, breathing out God’s own breath, YHVH’s own Spirit. Caleb’s heart and mouth persuasion was in God the LORD’s greatness for them and to them, believing thus it would also be through them. He wasn’t focused on the reality of their smallness in the eyes of the world, rather on the Greater One who was exceedingly superior in comparison to the giants. Those giants did not overwhelm him. They would indeed be the very giants whom he would, at 85 years of age, dispossess from out of his own inheritance, the very giants who dismayed his named fellow spies. (Josh. 14:6-15; Num. 13:4-16)
Oh, Beloved, we have let our eyes and our ears to this world’s news and events dictate to our heart, dictate to our believing, that our Almighty God is not going to do for us as He has promised. We have settled for the desert (deliverance out of without inheritance into abundance of so very great and abundant promises). We don’t realize that the generation delivered out of Egypt was not at all pleasing to the LORD (Ps. 95:10; I Cor. 10:1-5), that the generation from whom reproach of slavery was cut off was the following generation, the generation that followed Joshua across the Jordan into their Divine inheritance (Josh. 5:9). We have let our hearts be captivated by an alleged big devil, all because this world’s news has made the dust eating, dust crawling snake of Genesis 3 be magnified into a dragon over our heavens. We have not let our hearts be captivated by the overwhelmingness of the good news of the finished work of the cross of our Savior Jesus Christ who stripped the devil at His death (Col. 2:15), then overcame death, having been raised from out of among the dead, then ascended to heaven and kicked the dragon from out of heaven, no longer allowed access there to accuse us before so awesome a God of impossibilities all because of the Living Blood of Jesus upon the true Mercy Seat (Rev. 12:5, 9-10; Heb. 12:22-24; Heb. 10:10-23). We have allowed our own seeming insignificance and/or our continually remembered short comings dictate to God that we can’t take possession of ALL what He has promised us. … It’s not about us, Beloved! It’s not about our ability or inability to possess. It’s not about our ability to have “great faith”. It’s wholly about the finished work of Jesus’ cross on our behalf, for us and as us, His having been raised to glory, to the glory of what He has gained FOR US AND AS US! Faith in Jesus is not about effort to believe. Let your heart and your lips be captivated by the glory of the finished work of the cross, Beloved. “Great Faith” will be the fruit of gazing.
You, Dear One, see the LORD Jesus in the greatness of resurrection glory (II Cor. 3:17-18) … He is the One to see and behold your faith. Your heart’s faith will rest in its believing and confession, instead of in striving to believe and to confess. You will be being changed effortlessly, even surprisingly to yourself … stuff for which you have striven in vain to change will fall off of you while you behold your LORD Jesus in the glory of the finished work of His cross. This is what it means to “believe in the good news”. Quit letting your ears and your eyes be imprisoned (captivated) to the events of this age. It skews true Grace-truth reality of God our Savior’s dealings with us and with the world from the scriptural truth of the finished work of the cross. Moreover, it robs of faith, even the rest of faith, for believing for inheritance, for huge inheritance. The news of this world, of this age, has always been bad. Rather, let your focus gaze increasingly on your Glorious, exceedingly Powerful, throne seated Savior … for …
“AS HE IS, SO ALSO ARE WE ON THE EARTH.” 1 John 4:17b (NASB)
It’s time to be a people of a different spirit, Beloved!
You are so greatly loved. Mark D.
kairos – (Kahee-ros’) – Strong’s concordance defines this word: “an occasion, I.e. set or proper time.” The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible (NASB) defines this word; “season, time, but not merely as a succession of moments, which is chronos,” [from which we derive the English word ‘chronology’]. “Kairos, however, implies not the convenience of the season, but the necessity of the task at hand, whether the time provides a good, convenient opportunity or not.” This must be understood. Strategic times of the Lord do not necessarily imply good or convenient times. We are in Kairos times. Maybe not good or convenient times, but definitely strategic, opportune times because of the season we are in. We must have “ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches,” (Rev. 2:29), so as to respond correctly to the Kairos time.
* Some Scripture for this letter is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, (c) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Other references translated from Grk. Txt as presented in T. Newberry’s Englishman’s Greek New Testament, Zondervan Publishing – 1982- originally published in London, Eng. 1877