Still as Strong!!!

Joshua 14:6-11
Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadeshbarnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadeshbarnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.

This scripture gets me so excited! I love to hear Caleb's testimony here. He is saying to Joshua that he is as strong in his faith than ever. He starts by reminding him that he was forty years old when he started this journey of faith and now he is eighty-five. But something he says really stirs up my heart. He says, "I have wholly followed the Lord." Wow! What a faith and trust in the Lord.

Caleb was just like us. He heard the people and their negative reports on the land. I imagine that everytime he got pumped up and excited about going into the promised land he heard the voices of those naysayers. Maybe Caleb would have a few men gathered around him saying, "Men, brethren, the land is just over that horizon. We can do this! God will be with us!" Then those around him murmuring, "Yeah, like He was in Egypt? Someone told me that the people in this land were twice as big as the Egyptians..." "Yea, we're like grasshoppers to them..." another would say. And as Caleb said, the people's words would melt their hearts. The sound of discouragement often made the people feel defeated.

Caleb wholly followed the Lord. Would you? Or better yet, do you? Even when the people tell you how worthless your stance is? Even when the naysayers degrade the Word of God that you have preached for years?

Caleb said that his strength was strong then, and today it's still as strong, in faith as well as in body. Thank you Lord for my calling! It is just as fresh today as it was in the day you called me. The Gospel is just as true and powerful today as it was back then when I trusted and believed.