Faith Capsule: Trusting God to deliver as promised is to wholly follow Him.
Numbers 14:1-38
Complying to the word of God with consistency is what it means to wholly follow Him. Obedience should be in full compliance and whenever it is short of full compliance it becomes disobedience. Thousands of the children of Israel followed Him but only two (Caleb and Joshua) were able to follow Him fully. The spy that went to spy the Promised Land came back to discourage the children of Israel. Those that went to spy could not to hold on to the promise of God. The book of Numbers 32:8-11 stated, “Thus your fathers did when I sent them away from Kadesh Barnea to see the land. For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, so that they did not go into the land which the Lord had given them. So the Lord’s anger was aroused on that day, and He swore an oath, saying, ‘Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and above, shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed Me.” A man that does not believe God for His word has refused to follow Him. The word of God testified that Caleb and Joshua were the only two that stood against the negative report of their fellow spy. All that were not able to hold onto the word of His promise could not make it to the Promised Land “except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.” (Numbers 32:12) Trusting God to deliver as promised is to wholly follow Him.
King Saul’s life story demonstrated half obedience. God commanded Saul to go and attack the Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they had by not sparing them. God wanted Saul to kill all including animals because of what the Israelites suffered at the hand of the Amalek when they were on the way from Egypt. Saul took command into his hand in 1 Samuel 15:9, “But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.” It is disobedience in it is own class when there is a failure to fully comply in His word. Half-obedience makes hypocrites out of those that come to the Lord, and do not follow him. The children of Israel, because they were not following Him fully, journey was terminated in the wilderness. To obey God is to follow His Word. Following the Word of God is obeying God.
Prayer for today: Ask God to deposit in your life the spirit that makes man to follow Him fully