Luke 6:46-49

Luke 12:35-48

Ephesians 5:14-21

2 Timothy 1:6-7

1 Peter 4:7-11

What do these verses tell us about the return of Christ?

In what ways do the passages describe the need to be ready?

What actions accompany those who believe in and are preparing for His coming?

What is the Spirit showing the Church or ourselves regarding our need to live awake and respond in obedience to God’s calling?

As we are awakened by God in the areas of holiness, prayer, hope, all fueled and inspired by the Holy Spirit, we are also called into a life of obedience to His calling. As an example of obedience to calling let’s consider the Israelites as they are delivered from slavery in Egypt and called to settle in the land of promise, Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. 

After traversing the wilderness, the people come to the land of Canaan where Moses sends 12 men to go and spy out the land. After 40 days they bring their reports back to the people. All the spies attest that Canaan is indeed a good and fruitful land. However 10 of the spies terrify the people with their account of a land which “devours its inhabitants” before whom we seemed to ourselves as grasshoppers.” Not only are the residents scary and big but all their cities are heavily fortified. Their conclusion was that, “we are not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we are.”(Num.13:31-32)

However two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, after seeing the same land, the same people and the same cities, perceived things entirely differently. They had a different spirit. In Numbers 14 we read how Joshua and Caleb addressed the congregation of Israel. “The land which we passed through is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.”(Num.14:7-9) What a different perspective. Caleb and Joshua saw God as who He really is, the God who is able to fulfill His promise, the promise given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and because of their faith in who God is, their hearts are set to trust Him and walk forward in obedience!

As we know, the people sided with the ten naysaying spies and Deuteronomy 1:35 tells us God’s pronouncement of the consequence. “Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers except Caleb. He shall see it and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden because he has wholly followed the Lord.”

For forty years the people wander in the wilderness. We can fast forward to pick up with Caleb forty-five years later in Joshua 14. Joshua has finally led the Israelites to take possession of the land of Canaan and the territory is being distributed. Caleb steps forward. “The Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years. I am this day, eighty-five years old. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, the great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall drive them out just as the Lord has said.”(Joshua 14:10-12)

This land that was promised to Caleb by Moses, when the people turned back to the wilderness to begin their 40 years of wandering, was the most fortified land in Canaan, whose inhabitants  made the other spies seem like grasshoppers by comparison. That was Caleb’s hill country. How is it that this man maintained his warrior heart? How did he still believe for this land for 45 years? It is said of Caleb in Numbers 14:20 that Caleb had a different spirit and had followed God fully. Even Caleb says of himself that he has wholly followed the Lord his God. The secret of Caleb’s spirit is his faith in God which led to obedience. He was awake to the promises of God and obedient to follow the call of God. 

What about the 40 years in the wilderness one might ask? What did he do to follow God then? We get a glimpse of this from Joshua, Caleb’s fellow spy, in Joshua 23 as he gives a final charge to the people of Israel: 

• Be very strong to keep and do all that is written in the book of Moses, turning aside neither to the right nor the left.
• You shall cling to the Lord your God.
• One man puts 1000 to flight since it is the Lord who fights for you.
• Be very careful to love the Lord your God.
• Know in your hearts and souls that not one word has failed of all that God has promised.(Joshua 23:4-14)

Could this be a picture of Caleb in the wilderness, obeying the words of Moses, 

loving God, remembering his promises, reminding himself of His faithfulness, His power, His dependability. And one more thing that Caleb did in the wilderness was to invest in his children. His daughter exhibits the same kind of spirit as her Dad, a different spirit, the spirit of one who wholly follows her God.

We will pick up Achsah’s story next time.