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We can be assured that God knows and rewards those who follow Him wholeheartedly.
6 The descendants of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal,
and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him,
“You know what the Lord promised Moses the man of God at Kadesh-barnea about you and me. 7 I was forty years old when Moses the Lord’s servant sent me from Kadesh-barnea
to scout the land, and I brought back an honest report.
8 My brothers who went with me caused the people to lose heart,
but I followed the Lord my God completely.
9 On that day Moses swore to me,
‘The land where you have set foot will be an inheritance for you and your descendants forever,
because you have followed the Lord my God completely.’”
review Caleb's experience as a spy when the Israelites
had approached the promised land more than four decades earlier:
After the Israelites left Mount Sinai and were readying themselves to go into the promised land,
they settled at Kadesh-barnea, an oasis south of Canaan.
Then Moses sent twelve spies, one from each tribe,
to scout out the land so that they would know what to expect when they entered it.
When the spies returned, ten of them said that
while the land was everything God had said it was,
Israel would not be able to defeat its inhabitants.
The two spies who said Israel could defeat them
because the Lord would give them the victory were Joshua and Caleb.
Nevertheless, the people believed the report of the ten spies instead of Joshua and Caleb (Num. 13-14). .It was because of their unwavering faith and devotion to God
that Joshua and Caleb, along with their families,
were the only ones God permitted to enter the promised land from that generation. (PSG, p. 60)
Share the names of people believed to demonstrate wholehearted devotion to God.
What qualities stand out with those people.
Compare those qualities to the life of Caleb.
Discuss the obstacles Caleb may have faced in his decision
to obey God wholeheartedly.
Though it had been 45 years since Caleb had scouted out the land,
he was still not afraid to tackle any problems that might come up.
If anything, his longstanding relationship with God gave him even more confidence of what the Lord could do.