Walking in a Different Spirit

Walking in a Different Spirit

By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe

Numbers 14:30: “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.”

Caleb was one of the 12 spies Moses had sent to search the Promised Land. He was one of the family chiefs of the tribe of Judah. He and Joshua were the only two of the spies who encouraged the people to take the land.

Because they lacked faith to enter the Promised Land at that time, all the people that had been counted, from twenty years old and older, died in the wilderness except Joshua and Caleb.

After the death of Moses, Joshua became the leader of the Israelites.  When God’s people had battled the inhabitants of the land for five years, Caleb came to Joshua with a request:

Joshua 14: 6-14: “Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him: "You know the word which the Lord said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. So Moses swore on that day, saying, `Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.'

“And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said.

 “And Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as an inheritance. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.”

The Anakim lived in the land that was to become Caleb’s.  They were giants.  Their warlike appearance and fortified cities filled most of the Israelites with terror.  But not Caleb.  He was a man of a different spirit.  Most people are willing to retire from active Christian duty long before the age of 85.  But not Caleb.  He was a man of a different spirit. 

We all face giants in our land.  In Jesus Christ, we have the power to be like Caleb, to be a people of a different spirit.  “We are blessed in every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).

In other words, we are blessed with every provision for our spiritual welfare. Our spiritual needs, including victory over sin and fear and failure, have already been met in Christ Jesus.

We are a people of a different spirit.  We need only to walk in that spirit. Like Caleb, we must choose to follow wholly the word of our God.


Our prayer: “Lord, I choose to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, to have a different spirit within me, to follow You fully, to receive the promises You have given me in Your Word.”