A believer knows when it is time to go. It is a privilege to have that knowledge. The patriarchs in the Word of God knew when it was their time to go. At the end of our lives, we want to confidently say that we have finished our course.
There was another man who stayed the course and finished regardless of his challenges. Of all the children of Israel who left Egypt, only two entered the Promised Land—Caleb and Joshua. Our focus will be on Caleb.
Joshua 14:6-12
Now the people of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt in fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. So on that day, Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.’ “Now then, just as the Lord promised, He has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time He said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, with the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as He said.”
The passage above tells us that the report of the ten spies made the hearts of the people melt, but Caleb trusted in the Lord. He was 40 years old when he was sent to spy out the land. He waited 45 years since the Lord promised an inheritance to him through Moses.
At 85 years old, he was still physically strong enough to do what he did 45 years ago. Caleb stayed strong for days, months, and years. This is staying power. Let’s look further at Caleb’s background for a deeper understanding.
He came out from a group. Association is very important. Your environment, most times, will determine where you end up. Caleb was part of a group that had an impoverished mentality, yet he believed and entered the Promised Land. The reason was a heart issue.
Hebrews 3:7-12, 19
So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. So we see that they were not able to enter because of their unbelief.
Caleb entered because he had a different heart. On the other hand, the Israelites had a heart of unbelief.
Slavery made the Israelites’ hearts very fearful. It had knocked belief out of their system. It had been drilled into their mentality that they were nothing. They were mentally broken. In their minds and hearts, they were defeated. When God was leading them through Egypt, He performed many miracles so that they could have confidence and hope in Him.
In Exodus 14:10, the children of Israel saw their oppressors and were overcome with fear. Your past can have a strong influence on you. Fear brings bondage (Romans 8:15). It was the same with Gideon. He did not believe anything good about himself. The message is: don’t let anything define you except what God says. Caleb’s name meant “dog,” a name a slave master must have given him to ensure he understood he was nothing, yet Caleb pushed past that and believed the report of the Lord.
Why was Caleb different?
The issue with the Israelites was slavery, and they saw themselves as grasshoppers. God’s report of Caleb was that he had a different spirit (Numbers 14:24). He had the same experiences as the Israelites, yet he had a different mindset. It was not just courage or determination but also a quality of mind with faith in God. He believed in everything God had said. That mindset differentiated him from the pack.
If we must stay the course of life, we must have the same heart that Caleb had. Caleb saw the miracles and was strong in faith. He learned to rely on and follow God wholeheartedly. We must learn to do the same too. We inhabit much more than Caleb did.
In staying power, we must be able to shut out voices and imaginations and follow God wholeheartedly. Many people have lost it and followed the crowd. The only voice we must believe is the voice of the Lord.
We must seek God’s plans and purposes for our lives and align with them. When we face storms and challenges in life, we must embrace God’s promises for our lives and move forward, not retreat. Marriages fail because no one wants staying power. No one wants to endure hardship as a good soldier.
We must have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). We must learn to move forward despite what we feel. It is about looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, not focusing on challenges or circumstances. It must be a no-turning-back situation.
We have power, but it is not automatic. We need to be renewed in our minds. It comes down to studying the Word. Without it, we will not be transformed by the Word. We need to exchange the past for the present in Christ (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18). The Word will change our minds. We must see ourselves exactly as God sees us.
