Thursday,
March 17, 2016
VIDEO
Trust in the Lord with
all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his
will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Proverbs 3:5-6(NLT)
This short series has been about Yielding
to God, trusting God in an unreasonable way. Now, of course, when it comes to following
God’s will for your life, you do not throw reason out the door; faith includes
using our minds. But once you’ve used
your brain to investigate God’s claims and promises, and you’ve sought counsel
in prayer and with trusted advisors, there comes a time when you lay all human
reasoning aside and take the deep leap of faith to trust God with all your
heart, mind, soul and strength.[2]
So far we’ve seen that God responds
to that kind of trust with answers to prayer which sometimes shakes me up, but
always changes either the circumstances or the way I understand the circumstances. He also responds by opening doors and
pathways to lead us into places where we must lay aside the weights that keep
us from serving Him completely. He did
that with Abram (Abraham), and it opened up the opportunity to become a
blessing to all humanity.
How does that strike you - exciting,
or scary? Well, for a Christian, you’re
following the Lion of Judah, and, as Lucy (one of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia characters)
found out – he’s not a tame lion at all.
And how do you feel when you approach a lion? Does your pulse quicken; does your heart
pound? It should!
Do you feel that way when you
worship? You should!
When Abram said “Yes” to God, I would
imagine he understood the road was not going to be easy; I’m certain he
contemplated how difficult it would be to leave behind his family and the familiar
places. But the depth of the waters
through which Abram’s commitment to God would lead was something nobody could
plot on a map.
God’s test of the man who was chosen to be the spiritual
father of the nation Israel led to Mt. Moriah, where God told him to give back
the promised son, his beloved Isaac. [3]
It’s
easy to get side-tracked at this point, trying to figure out why God used the
idea of child-sacrifice (certainly an evil thing) to test Abraham. Indeed, James in the New Testament informs us
that God never uses evil to tempt people.
But here we have this incident before us – God putting Abraham to the
test. And at that time, after some
decades of following God (and sometimes falling off the pathway), Abraham was
willing to do whatever God required – including give his much-loved son.
But
God wasn’t condoning child sacrifice; he was testing Abraham’s faith:
“Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel
said. “Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You
have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.” Genesis 22:12(NLT)
In choosing to
follow God, Abraham had to let go of what was safe, comfortable and
familiar. It is the same for us; we can
follow God, or we can choose our own pathway, but not both.
Following God leads
to life, but human reasoning – independent from God – follows the destructive
path to judgment. Solomon understood
this:
There is a path before each
person that seems right, but it ends in death. Proverbs 14:12(NLT)
Often
in church we talk about those gifts of our lives which should be placed in God’s
hand: our time, talents, and tithes. And,
meaning well, we try to “fit” that thinking into our lives, meaning we really have
so much to do, so we’ll just do the best we can with giving what we can after
making a living, taking care of home and hearth, and fishing.
But
that’s not what God wants; God wants it all.
He wants us to yield everything! Just
like He wanted Abraham’s attitude and undivided attention, God also wanted Abraham’s
past, present and future. God wanted
Abram to become Abraham.
And he
wants no less from us, and for us.
For You Today
What does God have planned
for you? And are you willing to yield?
You chew on that as you hit
the Rocky Road today…and have a blessed day!
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