Joshua 14:8 Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the LORD my God.
Fathers sometimes forget their promises, but their kids almost never do. If a dad says, “On Friday night we’ll go out and get some pizza,” he may forget that promise, but his kids won’t. God had made a promise to the children of Israel and many of them did not forget, and God certainly did not forget either. Joshua 14 tells us that when Israel came into the land, “These are the countries which the children of Israel inherited…by lot was their inheritance…they divided the land.”
Among those people was a man named Caleb. He was one of the original twelve spies to go into the land and one of only two surviving spies from that time, because he wholly followed the Lord God. God had promised Caleb a certain piece of land, and God had done that through Moses.
So, Caleb brought some of the men of Judah to Joshua and said, “God promised me this land through Moses.” Then, three times Caleb makes the claim, “I wholly followed the LORD God.” The spies who went into the land saw big cities, big walls, big giants, and said, “We are all going to die.” Well, they did die, but not in Canaan. Caleb came back and said, “We can take the land,” and they did. Three times he said, “I have wholly followed the LORD God.” Only by wholly following God will you be able to inherit all that He intends.
What does God intend for your life? I don’t know, and you probably don’t know. The only way you’ll ever know is by wholly following God. What does it mean to wholly follow the Lord God? It means that you depend on Him, His character, and His trustworthiness. You live by faith over merely living by sight. Caleb said to Joshua, “I brought him [Moses] word again as it was in mine heart.” What Caleb saw when he said, “We can take this land” was what was already in his heart. What you have in your heart is what you will see with your eyes. The other spies were defeatist. They said, “We can’t take this land because of the giants.” Caleb lived by faith and not by sight. He said, “God promised us the land, and we can take it,” as it was in his heart.
You and I should choose faith over fear. Caleb says in verse 8, “Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the LORD my God.” He was saying, “Their hearts melted; they feared, but I had confidence because God was going before us. It wasn’t that I was greater than the giants. It was that God was great, and He promised us the land.”
Finally, Caleb had faith in God regarding the future. Verse 12 says, “Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said.” Caleb said, “God was with me, so He will be with me. I’m going into the future knowing that my strength is undiminished because God’s power is undiminished.”
Verse 14 says, “Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb…because that he wholly followed the LORD God of Israel.” Verse 15 says, “And the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba; which Arba was a great man among the Anakims. And the land had rest from war.” The name of this land was changed from “Arba,” this great giant, to Hebron. The very land in which the spies saw the giants was the land that Caleb was now taking. It was almost as if Moses said “You want this land full of giants? You can have it. No one else wants it.” Caleb said, “God was with me, and God will be with me.”
Hebron was the inheritance that God gave Caleb. What a wonderful testimony! So, only by wholly following God will you be able to inherit all that He intends today.