A different spirit

But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it. – Numbers 14.24

This was pretty much a faithless generation of people. When things went well they trusted God and when things went the wrong way they turned against God. They had a wrong spirit in them. There spirits constantly strove with God’s spirit. That was the way with the vast majority of the people.

But there was a man named Caleb. God said of Caleb that he had a different spirit in him.

Caleb is one of my heroes. Every time we see him he is standing out for his faith and obedience and loyalty. He is one of two men who stand up against the majority and recommend the nation go into Canaan despite the opposition. When they get into the land and start dividing it up Caleb says ‘Give me that mountain!’ It is later said of Caleb that he ‘wholly followed the Lord.’

That is the kind of different spirit that I want to have. I don’t want to go along with the crowd just because it is the easy way to go. I long for a Caleb spirit in my own life. I would love to have a spirit that stands out as different from the norm.

Caleb was different because he followed God fully. May God give me the strength to do the same and follow God fully so that my spirit is different from the norm.