We need to learn from Caleb and Joshua and be resolute and determined in our will to stand with the Lord, following Him, being assured that He will do what He has promised us – He will bring us into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land.
We need to be today’s Calebs, the partners of Christ; Christ is our real Joshua, leading us into the good land, and we are His partners, those who cooperate with Him in faith, standing on God’s promises.
This doesn’t mean that we need to promise God that we will do this and that for Him; rather, we simply need to open to the Lord and allow Him to do in us what He wants to do, so that He may gain in us what He desires for is purpose.
We need to let the Lord work in us and on us, direct our ways, and we need to ask Him to make us His partners by reproducing Himself in us.
Christ – as our real Joshua – has been anointed and appointed by God to carry out God’s commission, and we – as the Calebs of today – are His partners sharing with Him in the carrying out of His commission.
We have been firmly attached to the anointed and appointed One; we are members of His Body, and as the anointing is on the Head, the anointing also flows on us, anointing us to be His partners sharing with Him as His companions in the divine commission.
Practically, this means that we need to take God at His word, believe what He promises, and not look at the environment, the difficulties, or the trials, all of which seem to make the fulfillment of God’s purpose impossible.
We need to exercise our spirit – not just our mind; on one hand with our mind we read God’s word, but with our spirit we say Amen to His word and believe into the Lord, believing that He will fulfill in us and through us what He said He will.
And when we encounter difficulties, trials, problems, and hardships, we need to have Caleb’s attitude: these are our food. We are not looking for problems or difficulties, but when these come, we stand in the Lord in faith, believe in His word, and standing with the Lord, and He will fight the battle for us.
The giants seem to be so great and even much bigger than us, but our God is greater – He can destroy these giants, and we will be richly fed to continue to enjoy the Lord and enter into the good land. Amen, Lord Jesus, make us such ones!
We Stand with the Lord, believing that He will Fight for us and Accomplish His Will in us
In Joshua 14:6-15 we see a very good testimony from Caleb, who even at age 85 was full of vigor, ready to take the land that God has promised him.
May the Lord keep us strong, vital, fresh, ready for battle all the time, just like Caleb, even at the age of 85!
Caleb fully followed Jehovah, the God of Israel; when others brought a negative report and melted the heart of the children of Israel, Caleb was standing with the Lord, believing that He will fulfill what He said He will do – He will bring them into the good land.
And even though there were giants in the land – the Anakim, the Nephilim, Caleb took them as his food; he didn’t allow the land to devour him (as the other spies said it would) but he devoured the enemy.
Caleb had a determined and resolute will to follow the Lord according to His word. His will was set; he didn’t exercise his will power but the will function, and He didn’t promise to do things by his ability – his will was simply set, and he was standing with the Lord, based on His word.
We need to depend on God, stand on His word, and not rely on ourselves; we shouldn’t trust ourselves in doing what God wants to do, but trust in the Lord.
God will fulfill what He spoke; when God commands us to do something, we need to realise that it is an opportunity for Him to come in and do what He wants to do in us.
We must be resolute and determined in our will to stand with the Lord, just as Caleb fully followed the Lord (Num. 14:6-9, 24; Deut. 1:36; Josh. 14:14).
Caleb fully followed the Lord because he knew that God wanted the children of Israel to enter into the good land; he stood on God’s word, believed God’s word, and followed the Lord, for he knew that God will do what He wanted to do (Josh. 14:8).
When God wants us to do something, He will come in to do what He wants to do; we simply need to be those standing with the Lord, believing in Him and His word, and cooperating with Him for Him to do in us what He wants to do.
We may think we are weak – and we may think that the enemy knows that we are weak; however, God also knows that we are weak, and He will come in to do what He said He will do, so we simply need to stand with the Lord and believe in His word.
We may clearly see in our environment that the difficulties are great, the trials are harsh, and the problems seem to be unsolvable, and the enemy knows this also; however, God also knows this, and He would not ask us to enter into the good land if He would not intend to come and fight on our behalf and destroy our enemies!
So we need to simply tell the Lord,
Lord Jesus, we refuse to believe in what we see around us or even in us – we believe into You and we stand on Your word! We stand with the Lord, those resolute and determined in our will to follow the Lord wherever He may lead us. It is Your will that we would enter into the full enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ so that we may be Your corporate expression and bring in Your kingdom on earth – so we say, Amen, Lord, do it in us! We open to You and we let You in; defeat the enemies in us and around us, and fulfill Your purpose in us and through us!
Standing on God’s Promises and taking the Difficulties as our Food in Following God
The ten spies concluded that the land of Canaan eats their inhabitants, but Joshua and Caleb, having a different spirit, did not fear the Nephilim or the inhabitants of the land but said, They are our bread (Num. 14:9). Wow!
The Nephilim were the fallen ones, the giants that resulted from the union of the fallen angels with fallen human beings. Caleb believed that the Nephilim (the Anakim) would be defeated and become their bread because he knew that God had promised to bring them into the land (Num. 13:30, 33).
Caleb’s experience demonstrates that the more Nephilim we eat, the stronger we will become; he was full of vitality at eighty-five because by assimilating so many Anakim over the years, he had developed a constitution that showed no trace of age (Josh. 14:10-14).
There are three aspects of the application regarding the Nephilim; first, they signify the evil spirits and Satan’s kingdom and the human beings who are joined to them.
Then, the Nephilim signify all the difficulties standing in our way, challenging us; the more Nephilim we eat, the stronger we get, and we swallow up the difficulties by the resurrection life of Christ.
Third, the Nephilim signify the giants in ourselves; there’s the self-glory, self-will, self-exaltation, and all the manifestations of the self.
When the Lord touches our disposition and our peculiarity, we realise it is monstrous, and we exercise our spirit in the light of Christ’s victory to defeat the enemy and take the enemy as our food! The enemy may tell us that, if we look at ourselves, we are doomed, but we tell him,
Satan, we are not doomed – you are doomed, and the giants that are in our way are bread for us! Hallelujah, nothing in our being can withstand the victory of Christ applied to us. We stand in Christ’s victory! We are standing with the Lord to defeat the enemy and apply the victory of Christ to all the giants in our being! Hallelujah, Christ is Victor!
Our battle with the enemy will be a defeat to him – for we stand in the victory of Christ, fighting from victory, and applying the victory of Christ to him; however, this will be a bread for us, for the defeated enemy is the most tasteful bread.
The enemy will be our food, and swallowing him will be our satisfaction; when we are standing with the Lord, based on His word, the enemy is defeated, and the defeated enemy is our food.
Every time we meet a difficulty, a trial, an impossible situation, or a perplexing environment, we need to ask ourselves, Will we starve here, or will we eat?
If we rely on the Lord for victory and allow His overcoming life to be manifested in us, we will find fresh nourishment and increased vitality even in our difficulties, and we will be fed.
On one hand we eat the Lord in His word; we pray and read His word, and we allow His word to operate in us and be digested into our inner being. On the other hand, however, our bread is not only the word of God and doing His will, but also these “Anakim”, the difficulties that are in our way.
The more we eat the Anakim, the stronger we become.
This doesn’t mean that we are proud and haughty and ask for more difficulties or look for problems; rather, we humble ourselves before the Lord, and when difficulties come, we are standing with the Lord and consider these difficulties as our food.
Eating in this way will make us strong and will cause us to grow unto maturity.
Many Christians are weak because they fear the difficulties and are defeated when the hardships come; but those who met and overcome difficulty after difficulty, temptation after temptation, and hardship after hardship, they are full of vigor and strong.
We need to realise that every difficulty and temptation Satan puts in our way is food for us; as long as we are standing with the Lord and allow His resurrection life to be manifested in us, we will eat difficulties and grow spiritually in the Lord.
The sight of trouble and hardship strikes terror into the heart of those who do not have faith, but those who trust the Lord consider these as their food, and they grow in the Lord.
May we accept one trial after another, stand with the Lord in His word, exercise our spirit, and be nourished in Him throughout all these things. We must have living faith to go on, take up the battle, and swallow the enemy; the defeated enemy is the best bread, the most tasteful bread!
Lord Jesus, we rely on You for victory and we allow Your overcoming life to be manifested in us so that, no matter the hardship and temptation, we would find fresh nourishment and increased vitality in our Christian life. Amen, Lord, may we really see our hardships, temptations, and trials as being an opportunity for us to be nourished, fed, and strengthened in our going on with You! Strengthen our faith in You and our standing with the Lord so that, no matter what happens, we would be richly nourished by standing on Your word and eating the difficulties and the defeated enemies as the most tasteful bread!
Read this article / blog post in Romanian – puteți citi acest articol și în limba română la următorul link – Stăm de partea Domnului, credem în promisiunile Sale și luăm dificultățile ca hrană a noastră.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 37, ch. 3, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 11, Partners of Christ Fighting for God’s Interest.
- Hymns on this topic:
# When war is hot and fierce, / And Satan strong, / Then firmly trust God’s Word / And sing faith’s song. / Therefore you must declare / Christ’s victory; / The situation dark / Soon changed will be. (Hymns #876)
# There is, like Anak’s sons of old, / A race of giants still: / Self-glorying, self-confidence, / Self-seeking and self-will. / Still must these haughty Anakims / By Caleb’s sword be slain, / Ere Hebron’s heights of heav’nly love, / Our conqu’ring feet can gain. (Hymns #415)
# “So great a salvation” is given to us / That we may be made like our Lord glorious! / By all that He is and by all He has done / We’re brought into glory with God’s firstborn Son. (Hymns #1129)
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