Caleb

I get to preach in Lethbridge this Sunday. I am pretty excited. My friend, Scott, who is the pastor at A Place Called Hope will be on vacation and asked me to preach for him. So I will be preaching on Caleb. Caleb is quite an interesting character of the Old Testament, especially when you dig deep and find stuff out about his family and who they were.

Caleb's story is one about an underdog who was successful in life because He believed not only in his head, but with his whole being, that God could do what He said He could do, and then he acted upon it.

Many of us are living what we think is the ordinary Christian life and when we see God working through other believers like missionaries and evangelists, preachers and healers and so forth, we tend to think that they are super-Christians who are above normal Christianity. That is quite the contrary. They are the normal Christians, and most of us (at least in North America) are the ones who are far below the line of normality. We are below the line of normality because we think we believe that God can do what He says He can do, but most of us don't act upon it.

Do yourself a favour and study the life of Caleb. Start in the book of Numbers, and then go to Deuteronomy, then read about him in Joshua and also in Judges.

I pray that when you start to study the life of Caleb, you will see that believing in God is not just a head thing, but it is a life thing; it is not internal, but rather it is external. Faith in God is action, anybody can sit in a pew and complain about the Sunday sermon, it takes a real man (or woman) to step out on faith and say, "God said it, so I'm going to do it, and if He is with me, there will be success."

You may say, "Jason, how can I go out on that kind of limb if I'm not sure if God is going to show up?" That's what faith is all about - trusting God. You're not really trusting Him if you are not acting upon what He says.

I remember we were studying the life of Noah last year in youth group and I asked one of our youth what he learned about God, and he said, "The boat floated." Noah only had one chance. He didn't build a prototype, he didn't do tests on the ark, he built it the way God said and then he went in. The boat floated.

Just like Caleb and Noah, God wants you to put all of your eggs in one basket - Jesus Christ - and trust Him (do what He says). I hope that's just a litte bit to chew on for the day.