Watching Our Words (359) - July 18 2026

Pastor Catrice speaks on this week's topic about the heart of the Christian when finding themselves in a Wilderness.
 
Moses sent out scouts to report back what they found in Canaan, the land which God had given His children. However, some of them brought back an evil report because they were afraid by what they saw and didn't acknowledge the Lord and believe He would give them victory over their enemies.
 
When we venture into our day, or we find ourselves upon a problem or situation, what do we believe? Do we start professing doubt, repeating the devil's words spoken into our ears? Or, do we profess the Word of God and His precious promises, that my God will liberally supply (fill to the full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus?

This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): Psalm 23:1; 2 Corinthians 9:8; Psalm 23:2-6; Philippians 4:19; Numbers 13:1; Numbers 13:17-33; Proverbs 23:7; John 12:37-40; Philippians 1:6.

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) In a good day to you, this is Catrice and I'll be bringing a message to you today. Today I wanted to talk about going through the wilderness. How many of us are passing through a wilderness of some sort? How many of us would like to leave the current wilderness we might be in? Today I'll be reading from the Amplified Classic version of the Bible if you choose to follow along. Go with me to Psalms 23 1 and this is a Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd to feed, guide, and shield me. I have not lack. So that's a statement of who God is when we are in right standing with the Lord. Go with me to 2nd Corinthians 8 9 and God is able to make all grace, every favor, and earthly blessing come to you in abundance so that you may always and under all circumstances and whatever the need be self-sufficient, possessing enough to require no aid or support, and furnished in abundance for every good work and charitable donation. So this is what God is capable of doing when you make Him your Lord. And I know that you're probably asking what does this have to do with the wilderness? But as I unfold and I unpack this message for you, you're going to see a correlation of where you are wanting to pass through, which is the wilderness. The steps that you can take once viewing these scriptures to see how you too can walk through the wilderness that you might be in and the promises that God has intended for you should you be in right standing with Him. We're going to go to Psalms 23 2. He makes me lie down in fresh tender green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters and restful waters. He refreshes and restores my life, myself. He leads me in the path of righteousness, uprightness, and right standing with Him not for my earning it but for His name's sake. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear or dread no evil, for you are with me. Your rod to protect and your staff to guide, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My brimming cup runs over. Surely only goodness, mercy, and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life. And through the length of my days, the house of the Lord and His presence shall be my dwelling place. So it says in the Bible in Jeremiah 29 11 that only God knows the plans that He has for you. So if we're believing in the Bible, we're believing that God is guiding us, then that means He has set into motion plans for us that we have to seek after. The Bible says, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will open, ask and it will be given unto you. So clearly God is wanting us to seek Him, to seek after Him, to begin to ask those questions, to stir up those things so that He can answer you because we're serving a living God. If God did not answer questions, then we couldn't say that He was a living God. So I want you to focus on that, that God is a living God. According to Jeremiah 29 11, He does have plans for you and if you're in this wilderness, He's wanting to guide you through. So we're all wanting to be guided through. Everyone is where we are and we're trying to get through a process and we need help basically to get through this process. And so God's plans, God's promises, He refreshes you, He restores you, He leads you down paths of righteousness, He leads you to green pastures and still waters. There's a number of things that He does. When the Lord is our shepherd, we shall not want. But you can see here that He has to be your shepherd. Today, if you are lacking in your wilderness, have you made Jesus your Lord and Savior? You see, He, Jesus, must be your Lord first before you can call upon Him and He can provide for you. The Bible says the things that God will do for those who love the Lord and who are called according to His purpose. So in order for you to be called according to His purpose, you have to make Him Lord so that He can lead you. If Jesus is not your Lord, He can't lead you because you haven't surrendered all to Him. And what does that look like by surrendering all to Him? It's a Proverbs 3 5 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will direct your path. So are you allowing God to direct your path today? Are you allowing God to help and walk you through the current phase that you're in, that you're considering to be your wilderness, that you want to call upon the Lord so that He can provide for you? We're going to go ahead to Philippians 4 19. And my God will liberally supply, fill to the full your every need according to His riches and glory in Jesus Christ. So again, I'm just giving you different promises so that you know where God stands, that He wants to give you a good gift. Let's go to Numbers 13. This is a story about the Israelites in the wilderness. They'd been traveling and leaving Egypt. God is leading them out of the wilderness at this point in their journey and in the story. So join me in Numbers 13 1. It says, And the Lord said to Moses, send men to explore and scout out for yourselves the land of Canaan, which I give to the Israelites. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, everyone, a leader or head among them. So Moses, by the command of the Lord, sent scouts from the wilderness of Paran, all of them men who were heads of the Israelites. Numbers 13 17. Moses sent them to scout out the land of Canaan and said to them, Get up this way by the south, the Najeb, and go up into the hill country and see what the land is and whether the people who dwell there are strong or weak, few or many, and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the cities they dwell in are camps or strongholds. So you can see the direction so far that the Lord has given to Moses. But if you just think about it, he wants them to see, to view with their own eyes. Do they consider it good or bad? When he's giving them these options, it's like he's asking them to ask themselves a question. What are they seeing? Is it good in their eyes or is it bad in their eyes? Numbers 13 20. And what the land is, whether it is fat or lean, whether there is timber on it, and be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes. So they went up and scouted through the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehab, to the entrance of Hamath, and then went up into the south, the Najeb, and came to Hebron, and Ahimon, and Shishai, and Thalmea, probably three tribes, the sons of Anak were there. Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt, and they came to the valley of Eshkol and cut down from their branches with one of the clusters of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them. They brought also some pomegranates and figs. That place was called the valley of Eshkol cluster because the cluster which the Israelites cut down there, and they returned from scouting out the land every 40 days. They came to Moses and Aaron and to all of the Israelite congregation in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh and brought them the word and showed them the land's fruit. They told Moses, we came to the land to which you sent us, surely it flows with milk and honey. This is its fruit, but the people who dwell there are strong and the cities are fortified and large. Moreover, there we saw the sons of Anak of great stature and courage. Amalek dwells in the land of the south, the Negev, the Hittite, the Jezubite, and the Amorite dwell in the hill country, and the Canaanite dwell by the sea and along by the side of the Jordan river. Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and possess it. We are well able to conquer it. But his fellow scout said, we are not able to go up against the people of Canaan for they are stronger than we are. So they, they're referring to the scouts, brought the Israelites an evil report of the land which they had scouted out saying the land through which we went to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people that we saw in it are men of great statute. There we saw the Nephilim or giants, the sons of Anak who came from the giants and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers as so we were in their sight. So all of this, it's very interesting. God directs them through Moses, which he's appointed over the people as their deliverer to be a physical guide to them while they're going into the promised land. And so there's some questions that I want you to consider. So we started off talking about your wilderness, and then I gave you God's promises. And then I just read a story about individuals in the Bible, the Israelites who were going through their own wilderness to help you apply what you're going through in your own wilderness to see if you see any similarities. So I have some questions here. Do you believe God is leading you? Have you allowed him to lead you or are you telling the Lord the way you think it should be done? So you're in your wilderness, you're trying to get out of your wilderness, and I'm asking you, are you leaning on the Lord or are you just basically telling the Lord the way you think it should be done? This is something that you should just ponder to yourself. The next question is, is what we can see and touch more believable than what we can't see? So I'm going to refer back to the story that I read to you about the Israelites in Numbers 13. And in that story, the scouts believed the fruit they could see, touch, and eat, but not that they could possess the land. So remember, the Lord directed them to go into the land through Moses to scout out the land and to see whether it's good or bad, whether it's fat or lean. They had options of how they could see the land, and God gave them both options. Is it good or is it bad? So they totally believed in the grapes. The grapes, they could see it, they were large, there was a good report. You know, they came back and they said, surely this land is filled with milk and honey after seeing these grapes, which is something physical that they can see and touch. How many of us can see the promises in front of us that we can see and touch? If God is bringing us our daily food, if God is giving us air to breathe, if we are walking in health and we are recovering, these things are tangible. But are you believing in the things that are not seen? Are you believing in the instructions that God gave you? The next one is, are we Caleb and Joshua, or we the scouts with the evil report? And I'm asking this question because at some time or another, I'm sure that we've all been both in different situations. In one situation, I could be Caleb and Joshua. In another situation that is a different wilderness for me, I could very well be one of the scouts with evil reports. And I don't think that people are wanting to deliberately give an evil report. This is just the perspective under the conditions and circumstances and how they're feeling at the time. But I'm going over this to highlight this for you, in case you're unaware that you are giving an evil report in some circumstances. Is what we think more our reality than what God said we can be and do? And so with this example, I'm going to refer back to Numbers 13.1. In Numbers 13.1, my question is, is what we think more of a reality than what God said we can be and do? So it's what we are thinking versus what God has already said. So if go back to the story with the Israelites in Numbers 13.1, it starts off and it says, And the Lord said to Moses, send men to explore and scout out for yourselves the land of Canaan, which I give to the Israelites. Wow. God already gave them the land. It was already theirs. If we don't believe we can miss out on blessings that God has already answered and blessed us with. So God told them to go scout out this land. They came back with an evil report. The scouts did, and they said, Oh, there's giants in the land. But this is the thing they needed to believe in what God had already said. They were already giving a bad report that they could not take the land. It says the evil report saying the land through which we went to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. So have you ever been in a situation where, you know, it's your time to do something, whatever that is, and you're already talking yourself out of it. You're literally just talking yourself out of it. You're speaking things already over yourself before anything has even happened. Nothing has happened. They haven't taken the land. They haven't not taken the land. They haven't prepared to go in and take the land. It wasn't time yet. They were just simply to bring back a report about the land that God had already given them. How many of us, God has promised things to us. We've heard prophecies spoken over our lives. And then we begin to hear thoughts in our own mind, and it's the thoughts of the accuser. But we partner with those thoughts. And before long, just like the scouts with the bad reports, we're thinking something and then we're speaking it out. And so in this, they come back with this evil report about the land that God already said was theirs. And so if he already said it was theirs, then he's going to do what he has promised and they can take the land. So let's go on to the next one is how you see yourself, what you believe others see you as. So we'll just go back to the scripture. The scouts in Numbers 13, they said, there we saw the Nephilim or giants, the sons of Anak who come from the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers. And so we were in their sight. How many of us see ourselves as grasshoppers when it's time for us to move a mountain? We're already speaking that we can't do it. We've already said who we are by what we have spoken. Even though God has appointed us and anointed us, he sent people to prophesy over us. He's already told us that this is what he's wanting to do with us because only he knows the plans. We still have vain imaginations that exalt themselves above what God has said. And we have to cast those vain imaginations down under the foot of Jesus Christ, because we have an inheritance and the accuser who's whispering in our mind, he doesn't want us to get that inheritance. And so he's waiting for you to partner with what he's speaking in your mind that hasn't even taken place because he wants you to speak out what he wants you to speak out. And he's trying to change what you see. So if we go back and we read that scripture, it says, there we saw, we're seeing that they're viewing what they're seeing first. There we saw the Nephilim or giants, the sons of Anak who come from the giants. And we were in our own sight. So they already had low self-esteem. And if they were having these thoughts when they got there and they saw this, this means that the enemy was already working on them before they even got to view their promised land. How many of you, the enemy is already working on you before you start your own business, before you can have that family, before you get married, before you get that promotion, the enemy is already, the accuser is already telling you what you can't do, what you're not going to get, how you're not good enough. He's already filling your mind. And just like the scouts before they even get to the promised land, they're viewing through the opinion of the enemy, because remember if they were following the Lord, the Lord had already given them the land. So this is not what God had told them. This is something else. So we need to pause and think that's something else that you're thinking that does not line up with God's word. Where is that coming from? Who told you these things when God already has proclaimed over you what he's going to do for you, how he loves you, and he's shown you that he's been faithful. But yet when it's time for you to move into your promised land, first you see, and then once you see, you're thinking, what are you in your own sight? Are you believing that you're a grasshopper? Does the enemy have you thinking that you're a grasshopper? As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. And that's Proverbs 23 7. So what are you thinking in your heart that you are seeing and then you're speaking out, proclaiming it over yourself? Because you notice they thought this in their own mind and then they just believed that this is how they were seen. How many of us have gone into a room and that false spirit will be whispering in our ear? That unclean spirit will be whispering in our ear. We're not accepted. We're rejected. People are talking about us and none of that is going on. It's what the enemy wants you to believe. And the reason why I'm slowing this down is because God has already given you a promised land. He's already given you that place that you're going to be in. But you have to ask yourself, are you believing in what God has already said over you? Now let's go on and let's think about what God is saying. So in Proverbs 23 7. So as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. As one who reckons, he says to you, eat and drink. Yet his heart is not with you, but is grudging the cost. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers. So are we so afraid of what's to come? We're begrudging in our own sight and we become these grasshoppers that we don't want to become. Let's look at Philippians 1 6. And I am convinced and sure of these very things, that he who began a good work in you will continue until the day that Jesus Christ returned, developing that good work and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you. God, we just thank you for this message today. We just thank you, God, that we will believe the report of the Lord. We will believe what you say about us, God. We will believe what you have proclaimed over us, God, because we know that your word does not return void. And I just thank you, Lord, that this message is just hitting the target. It's hitting the bullseye. It's changing mindsets, God, and it's renewing the hearts of your people in Jesus name. Amen.