"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." -Philippians 4:13
As I have talked about in a previous article (which you can Click Here to view) God always keeps His promises. They may take some time, but He always keeps His promises. Well, in Numbers 13, God had sent a spy from each of the tribes of Israel to spy on this new land for forty days, and ten came back with a bad report, and two came back telling them that the land was good. I'm sure most of you have heard the story. In my experience, this is usually told to teach about optimism, which is good but today I am going to talk about the faith aspect of it.
In Numbers 14:4, the Israelites actually want to go back to Egypt, because they feel like God has set them all up to die as we see in verse 3. The problem with the Israelites here is that they had no faith that God would keep His promises, even though He had every time before. I mean, it's not like they didn't have evidence that God would help them, as they had already witnessed several time that God had helped them, but they did not want to believe. In Numbers 14:11 it says, "And the Lord said to Moses, 'How long will these people despise me? And how long will they not believe me in spite of all the sighs that I have done among them?" In fact, the Israelites flat out said in chapter 13 verse 31 that they cannot do it. Don't you think that if God showed them a land, and told them to conquer it then they could conquer it then that's exactly what would happen? God knows better than people.
What about us? How can we apply this to our every day lives? I mean, it's not like we're all going to be going to war to conquer land or anything. However, this does remind me of Philippians 4:13 which I'm sure you all have heard, which says, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." Every day, it is our job to make sure we follow God's commandments. We are told to teach others God's word(Matthew 28:19), and as long as you are around others, then this is possible. We also need to make sure and study daily (Joshua 1:8), and pray without ceasing, (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and to love one another even if it's difficult (1 John 4:7) and to put God first in everything we do (Matthew 6:24). If God has commanded us to do these things, then it is possible, and it's our responsibility to do these things.
