Your Name, Your Reputation: Choose Wisely



In Numbers 13, we have recorded the names of 12 men. Their names are listed there for all to see. Tasked to spy out the land of Canaan ahead of the conquests, these 12 would report back on what they found. Forever, their names are linked with their reports. The majority shrunk back in fear while a vocally strong minority wanted to trust God no matter the obstacles, claiming God's promises that the land was theirs for the taking.

You have a name and you are developing a reputation. Is it that you have trusted God or that you shrunk back in fear? Choose wisely how you develop that name and reputation, for others are watching and will follow.

Numbers 13:27-33 (NKJV)

“We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Numbers 14:6-9 (NKJV)

But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes; and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying: “The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, ‘a land which flows with milk and honey.’ Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.”

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