Be Full of Faith

By Tosin Lawal

Devotional Reading: And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!” Numbers 14:8-9NLT

The land of Canaan was where God promised the Israelites. This was the promise God made to their father Abraham, and they were waiting for its actualization.

At a point, God told Moses, the leader of the Israelites, to send 12 spies from each tribe of Israel to go scout out the land of Canaan. He told them to go see what the land was like. However, when they returned from the land of Canaan, the 12 spies were divided into two groups of ten and two. The first group of ten came with a bad report that instigated fear in the heart of the majority of the Israelites.

They said, “We can’t attack those people. They are stronger than we are.” The men spread a bad report about the land among the Israelites. They said, “The land we checked out destroys those who live in it. All the people we saw there are very big and tall. We saw the Nephilim there. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes. And that’s also how we seemed to them.” The family line of Anak came from the Nephilim.

However, one of the groups of two, Caleb, interrupted the men speaking to Moses. He said, “We should go up and take the land. We can certainly do it.” But then, the report of those groups often instigated fear in the hearts of the Israelites that they gave up.

Joshua and Caleb, who were the group of two, were really disturbed at the fear that had been instigated in the hearts of men at the expense of God’s presence with them. They spoke to the whole community of Israel. They said, “We passed through the land and checked it out. It’s very good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he’ll lead us into that land. It’s a land that has plenty of milk and honey. He’ll give it to us. But don’t refuse to obey him. And don’t be afraid of the people of the land. We will swallow them up. The Lord is with us. So nothing can save them. Don’t be afraid of them. ”Can you observe the difference in those two report presentations?

Now, listen. The journey of destiny fulfillment is one of faith. The road to fulfilling the plan and purpose of God for your life is a journey of faith. You’ve got to be ‘faithy’. Just as faith is contagious, so is fear. If you surround yourself with people of faith, you will grow to become a person of faith. Likewise, if you surround yourself with fearful people, always fear-driven, you will also grow to become fearful. God detests being coward.

Faith is contagious. Fear is contagious. Fear paralysis. It cuts a person’s journey short. It makes one vulnerable to the attack of the enemy. It is hard for persons who have chosen to live a life of fear to fulfil God’s mandate for their life. It takes faith and walking in faith to fulfill God’s plans and purpose for your life. It will take being courageous to reach your greatest potential in life. Fearful people don’t dare. They don’t take bold steps of faith. Little steps of faith are giant steps in disguise.

To tell you how much God detests being fearful, he judged those Israelites who gave in to fear and those ten spies who brought a message of fear and underrated themselves at the expense of God’s help and strength available to them. The Lord struck down those ten spies. God sees fear as rebellion, especially when he expects you to be ‘Faithy.’

To be ‘Faithy’ and courageous is not a denial of mountains. It is not even denial of the presence of fear. It is not the denial of challenges. However, despite them all, one gets to choose to walk by faith over them all. God finds it easy to walk with people who have chosen to live a life of faith.

What has God called you to do? Be courageous. It is not about your feelings. It is a decision regardless of how you feel. It’s not being presumptuous. It is not denying realities around you. It is choosing to live by a higher reality beyond every other.

Prayer and Confession
I will be full of faith. I will be courageous. I have chosen the realities of faith over any other realities.

Further readings: Numbers 13: 1- 14: 38, Hebrews 11:1-40
Reading The Prophets: Isaiah 51-55