Lev 20:24 “But I said to you, “you will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Have you ever found yourself short of getting G-d’s inheritance for lack of faith in Him? Have you ever found yourself, for lack of faith in G-d, decrying Him, denigrating Him, disparaging Him, discrediting Him, misrepresenting Him and impugning Him by distorting the situation?
If you are, you will find yourself in the sandals of 10 out of the 12 spies who scouted the land of Canaan with a mission to bring a report back to Moses. G-d gave four simple commands to the Israelites to “Go up and take possession of it (the Land of Canaan)…” and he said “do not be afraid: do not be discouraged.” (Deut 19:2)
So why would one “scout the land” to know whether or not the inheritance is good or bad? G-d does not give poison gift to his children.
In Mat 25:34 “Come you who are blessed by my father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” In Colossians 1:14 “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
It is in the Lord’s presence that we experience redemption and forgiveness of sins. But somehow, we can make the way difficult for ourselves to be in His presence even when what we experienced has been good. The spies after scouting the Land had wonderful things to say at first but because of the Anakites living there, 10 spies got so scared that they started to blow the story of out proportion. They lost faith in the One who brought them there.
Who is the Anakite in our life that keeps us from fully entering the promise land, who makes us discredit G-d and by doing so bring other people down with us? Why is this defeatist attitude controlling us? G-d already performed miracles in our life with mighty powers. We know His strength, and yet we do not want to listen to him. We know His Heart, and yet we decry Him. Whatever is our Anakite in our life: envy, rage, lies, rebellion, meanness, addictions…, we can overcome the enemy with the power and presence of G-d. Let’s not attempt to do it on our own without God’s presence because like the Israelites, we will be overcome. So, let’s go up and take possession of our inheritance with G-d’s presence. Sometimes, the very presence of G-d is plenty sufficient to drive out the Anakites in our life without raising a single finger. So next time G-d give us an assignment, let’s not scout out the land to weigh the good or bad of G-d’s gift to us, let’s simply obey His commands and let’s go up with Him and take possession in “always giving thanks to G-d the father for everything.” Eph 5:19.