Distance Devotions – April 22, 2020
Numbers 13:33 – And So We Were In Their Sight
Numbers 13:33 …and so we were in their sight.
Yesterday in our Distance Devotions, we dealt with fear and how it paralyzes people. It comes from looking too much at ourselves. Quite frankly, if the godliest of all saints spent their time in doing nothing but looking to see their own flaws and weaknesses, they would be utterly depressed and think they would never enter the glories of Heaven. Thank God we are told to look unto Jesus and not to ourselves. The spies, or should I say ten of them, came back with a horrific fear of what lay before the nation. Two, Caleb and Joshua, instead saw the land that God had promised. They did not buy into the “we were in our own sight as grasshoppers” mentality that the other had. And if that weren’t bad enough, the ten spies also said, “…and so we were in their sight.”
When Israel finally entered the Promised Land forty years later, Rahab reported to two spies that the hearts of the men of Jericho melted because of the Israelites. When we try to live according to what we believe others to be thinking of us, we are in actuality turning the reins of our life over to someone else. If God has promised to provide, why should I be concerned what those outside of Christ think of that. I am not talking about being rude and losing your testimony before men, but I am speaking of failing to follow the Lord because we see the object as too hard and the attitude of people will be against us. When I graduated Bible College in 1981, I was working for Southern Bell Telephone Company. I had good benefits and a good salary. As I left on a leave pending transfer, so I could keep my insurance for a year as long as I paid the premiums, some of my friends and supervisors told me I would starve. They were totally negative on the idea of starting a church in a little place called Atoka, Tennessee. Well, thirty nine years have almost rolled by and I am always trying to figure out how to lose weight. I wondered how it would go. Starting a church was new to me, but the Lord overrode my mistakes and here we are in the year 2020. We were laughed at by some, one night someone stood outside the storefront we met in and cussed to the top of their lungs. It hasn’t all been sunshine and roses, but the Lord has never failed.
Do not worry how your faith makes you look in the eyes of the world. So what if you seem to be a grasshopper in their eyes? You report to the King of Kings! Your measurement belongs to Him and not the world. The ten spies cost thousands their lives and the nation forty years because they thought they could read the minds of those whom they would need to conquer. You are not a mind reader and do not need to be. Love God, follow Him, and serve Him trusting the outcome into His hands.
Pastor F. J. Weems III