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Day 45, or February the 14th. How supportive are you? Our thoughts today are rooted in

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Numbers chapter 14 verse 11. The Lord said to Moses, How long will these people treat

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me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs

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I have performed among them? Now the big picture surrounding this verse. At God's instigation,

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spies are sent into the promised land. One spy came from each of the tribes, twelve in

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all. They brought back conclusive evidence that the land was truly a land of milk and

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honey. But the people were unconvinced when they heard that only two of the twelve spies

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were urging them to believe God and claim the land. This resulted in revolt in the camp,

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and the whole nation was condemned to forty years of wandering in the wilderness, during

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which time that faithless generation would die. The Israelites rebel against God, and

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Moses prays for them to get another chance, and they are duly pardoned. However, they

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would still wander in the wilderness, due to their lack of faith.

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And now today's action step. God tests Moses by appearing to lose patience with the Israelites

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and threatening to destroy his unbelieving people and create a new nation through the

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descendants of Moses. It was clearly a test, because there was no way God would break his

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promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The reaction of Moses is very interesting. He

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argues with God that if this happened, other nations would lose respect for the living

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God, who has done such marvelous things for the Israelites. He begs God to forgive his

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wayward people and give them another chance. God's reputation was of paramount importance

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to Moses. Do you defend God's reputation as vehemently as this? The biggest area of

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failure can often be within the church itself. We stay in the name of God by criticizing

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fellow Christians. We need to stop. If we don't speak positively about our God and

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His church, who will?