{"id":499,"date":"2009-12-22T07:08:21","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T15:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wordpress\/?p=499"},"modified":"2009-12-22T10:18:57","modified_gmt":"2009-12-22T18:18:57","slug":"the-drawing-of-the-father-12-22-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=499","title":{"rendered":"The Drawing of the Father 12-22-2009"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"devoDate\">December 22, 2009<\/div>\n<div id=\"devoTitle\">The Drawing of the Father<\/div>\n<div>Music and video:<\/div>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/NI_1YliutzA&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/NI_1YliutzA&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<div id=\"devoVerse\">No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him . . . \u2014John 6:44<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately. Will I react positively to the truth that God has revealed? Will I come to Him? To discuss or deliberate over spiritual matters when God calls is inappropriate and disrespectful to Him. When God speaks, never discuss it with anyone as if to decide what your response may be (see\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Galatians+1:15-16\">Galatians 1:15-16<\/a> ). Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of my will whereby I deliberately commit myself. But will I commit, placing myself completely and absolutely on God, and be willing to act solely on what He says? If I will, I will find that I am grounded on reality as certain as God\u2019s throne.<\/p>\n<p>In preaching the gospel, always focus on the matter of the will. Belief must come from the <em>will<\/em> to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender to a persuasive or powerful argument. I must deliberately step out, placing my faith in God and in His truth. And I must place no confidence in my own works, but only in God. Trusting in my own mental understanding becomes a hindrance to complete trust in God. I must be willing to ignore and leave my feelings behind. I must <em>will<\/em> to believe. <strong>But this can never be accomplished without my forceful, determined effort to separate myself from my old ways of looking at things.<\/strong> <em>( can I really do this or is it the Spirit of God inside of me? &#8230;jdv)<\/em>I must surrender myself completely to God.<\/p>\n<p><em>one way of surrendering is the consistent discipline of the CO2. \u00a0 This gets us ready each day to expect to be led by Him, \u00a0 to expect places to &#8220;pick up our cross&#8221; and daily follow him. \u00a0Only by being readied in the morning and expectant of opportunities do we stand a chance of not missing those opportunities for obedience. \u00a0 \u00a0djr<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Everyone has been created with the ability to reach out beyond his own grasp. But it is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is an inner, personal one, not an intellectual one. I come into the relationship through the miracle of God and through my own will to believe. Then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transformation in my life.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December 22, 2009 The Drawing of the Father Music and video: No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him . . . \u2014John 6:44 When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately. Will I react positively to the truth that God [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":502,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}