By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing . . . I will bless you . . . —Genesis 22:16-17
Abraham, at this point, has reached where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.
My goal is God Himself . . .
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.
“At any cost . . . by any road” means submitting to God’s way of bringing us to the goal.
There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks, if He speaks to His own nature in me. Prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, “Come,” I simply come; when He says, “Let go,” I let go; when He says, “Trust God in this matter,” I trust. This work of obedience is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.
God’s revelation of Himself to me is influenced by my character, not by God’s character.
’Tis because I am ordinary,
Thy ways so often look ordinary to me.
It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, “In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee.”
The promises of God are of no value to us until, through obedience, we come to understand the nature of God. We may read some things in the Bible every day for a year and they may mean nothing to us. Then, because we have been obedient to God in some small detail, we suddenly see what God means and His nature is instantly opened up to us. “All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen . . .” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Our “Yes” must be born of obedience; when by obedience we ratify a promise of God by saying, “Amen,” or, “So be it.” That promise becomes ours.
Journal DJR Nov 17,2010
Good Afternoon Lord. Kieth Green hit hard in the music today … “if you cant bring 100%, dont bother coming at all” … Wow. That’s not what we mainly hear in the contemporary Christian music. … But I notice that You said stuff like that a fair amount. And we just dont hear it. Or we are blind to it or we somehow explain it away by the other things you said about grace…. How are we to balance these things?
The answer is in the song. Just obey and you wont need to theologically confuse yourself. That is what a (well trained) child does. And I said, “come as a child”
Makes sense. I do have a tendency to over analyze and allow seeming contradictions to stumble me, when your simple answers are there all along. Thanks for hiding them in plain sight.
Click Image for John White's Original Vision For CO2's
