THE LORD SPOKE (April 01)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Old Testament: Joshua 14-15

When others were looking for a landing strip, Caleb was looking for a launch pad. At the age of 85 he was still looking for mountains to climb: “so here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country...” (Josh. 14:10-11).

For 38 years, from the time he’d been sent out as a spy, Caleb had continued to serve the Lord with his whole heart. This is emphasized three times in Joshua 14:8,9, and 14. You don’t get to age 85 and then decide to do something great. It takes a lifetime of commitment and faithfulness. The spiritual patterns you establish now will serve you well in old age if they are godly and founded upon Scripture. Likewise, it will be very hard to break out of the ruts if you’re heading down the wrong road now. It’s like the old sign that used to be along the road to Alaska: “Choose your rut carefully - you’re going to be in it for a long time.”

Part of the secret here is to be willing to stand alone, to stick with what is right even when it isn’t popular, to stand up for the truth even when the crowd goes the other way. That was Caleb 38 years before. When everyone else had a different solution, only he and Joshua chose what was right and they nearly died for it. The crowd was ready to stone them.

How can you be sure? How can you know that you’re right and the crowd is wrong? What if it’s just stupid bull-headedness? Caleb’s testimony gives us a definite and clear answer:

• “you know what the Lord said” (Josh. 14:6)
• “the Lord promised” (Josh. 14:10)
• “the Lord promised” (Josh. 14:12a)
• “just as he said” (Josh. 14:12b)

Caleb staked his life on God’s Word and it never failed him. You can too!


New Testament: Acts 2

There are many promises in the Bible. As kids we used to sing, “Every promise in the Book is mine; every chapter, every verse, every line....” But that’s not true! There are many promises that are given to individuals or to Israel as a nation that do not apply to all of us. We must be careful in our interpretation to go through the three basic steps:

1. Observation - What does it say? To whom was it written?
2. Interpretation - What did it mean? How would the original recipients have understood it?
3. Application - What does it mean? How can I apply it today, knowing it was for them originally?

There is a particularly important Promise that is often referred to in the Scriptures. Whenever the Bible speaks of “the promise” it’s usually a reference to the Abrahamic Covenant. There are many dozens of references to that foundational Promise in both Testaments.

Romans 4:16 tells us that the Promise is “guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring”. The context goes on to explain that Abraham has physical descendants, whom we know as the Jewish people, but that he also “became the father of many nations” (Rom. 4:18). Abraham’s faith was “credited to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:22) and that type of faith becomes the requirement for others to participate in the covenant given to him. Paul opens it up and says it is “also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness - for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Rom. 4:24). Back at the beginning of the passage (Rom. 4:16) a distinction had been made between “those who are of the law” (Jewish Christians) and “those who are of the faith of Abraham” (Gentile Christians).

That same distinction is also made by Paul in Galatians 3:6-9 where we’re told that “those who believe are children of Abraham”. He goes on to say that “God would justify the Gentiles by faith”. In that sense, we non-Jewish people can become the children of Abraham too. He has both physical descendants and spiritual descendants.

Now here in Acts 2:39 the application of “the promise” becomes so much more clear. As Peter responds to his Jewish audience on the Day of Pentecost he says, “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off - for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Aren’t you glad?! That’s the open door for Gentiles. That’s where and how we have been grafted in to that root that supplies our nourishing sap (Rom. 11:17). We were far off but now we’ve been brought near.

But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. (Eph. 2:13)