Still Spiritual After All These Years

April 10, 2009

Today's Reading: Joshua 13-14 and Romans 13

Joshua and Caleb were pretty amazing men. They didn’t believe the other ten spies, who were frightened of the competition on the other side of the Jordan. Instead, they saw an opportunity to get some large grapes. They understood that success wasn’t going to come without sacrifice.

As his reward, Caleb received some land. It sounds like it was some extra land was given to him, and he said something that was very interesting. He says that “just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. 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.”

So, while all these battles were going on, was there an 85-year old man on the battlefield? Man, that would have been a sight to see, especially if you were on the other side. Can you imagine a giant guy saying he was beaten by a senior citizen? Oh the shame!

Seriously, you have to admire Caleb. I can honestly say that the day that I got saved, I was pretty full of it. By it, I mean I felt full of Christ. This was especially true after I got water baptized. Back then, it seemed like a lot of the problems that I faced in my life were wrapping themselves up.

Then life started happening, and it seemed like no matter what I did, I could never get the joy of being born again back again. These days, I don’t really care about getting certain feelings back, because I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how you feel, it matters what you are. The fact is, I am still a Christian after all these years, and it has been about twenty.

Still, I admire Caleb’s claim that he has the same “fire” that he had 40 years ago. Christians talk a lot about the “fire”, and they usually mean something…actually, I don’t know what they mean. I think a lot of Christians equate this term to a feeling, which we should never count on.

If a feeling is the symptom of something genuinely spiritual, then that’s good. But if we go to Christianity because of a feeling, then there isn’t much difference between Christians and the world.