Seize the Moment – Day 574
Confirmation Bias!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, October 12.
Do you listen to reports with faith or with fear?
That is an important question because of “confirmation bias.” People naturally prefer and process information that confirms or strengthens their existing beliefs or values.
The nation of Israel was on the border of the Promised Land and in Numbers 13:1-2 God commanded Moses to send twelve men to spy out the land. After forty days they brought back their report.
“We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.” So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. “There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
Two contrasting reports based on the same observations:
- Caleb’s report confirmed his faith that God would do what God promised to do—make the way into the Promised Land!
- The other spies’ sight was distorted by fear (33) and their report confirmed their fear that the giants of the land were too big to defeat.
Both were right! The giants were too big for the Israelites to defeat, but God … God is bigger than any giant and God always makes a way for that which God promises!
Seize the moment and let your faith in God confirm the way of victory!