Friday, September 9, 2016

Eye On the Prize


There is a great passage in the Old Testament about Moses giving some of his final words of instructions to Israel.  “In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God,  who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go. When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore:  “No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors,  except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.” Deuteronomy 1:32-36
So God kept His promise to Caleb. Even Moses was not going to the Promise Land. There is much we can learn here. If Caleb were with us today these might be his closing words of encouragement:
1. Let your labor honor God! For forty years he labored in the desert, and kept faithful and obedient.
2. Join God’s army! Caleb didn’t follow the crowd. He kept his focus vertical.
3. Be an overcomer in the Lord! Only two people who left Egypt made it in to the Promise land, and Caleb was one. As Paul said much later, “Keep your eye on the prize, which is Jesus Christ.
Amen?