God’s ways are not our ways!
| We quickly will learn, from our study of the Bible that God doesn’t ask anything of us, that He does not also require of Himself, as we can learn from Abraham, and also the life of Jesus.
As the Bible says of Jesus, that He learned obedience through the things he suffered. (Heb 5:8) In the above picture, what is being portrayed by the artist is a scene taken from Genesis 22, where Abraham was asked to give his only son. Likewise, God was not asking Abraham to give nothing that God was not also willing to give himself, when His son would later be sacrificed on that same hill and was not it the love of us God that gave us his only begotten Son? We know the end of the story, we know about the angel appearing, we know about the lamb, the ram caught by a “crown of thorns” in the thorn bush. We see its Christological significance that prefigures the Lamb who would come and take away the sins of the World. But the story of Abraham is monstrous, who could think of such a thing… it should revolt us. It is inhuman, and it demonstrates nothing about what we understand about love… and yet this is what God required of Abraham, as a test. Truly, God’s ways are not our ways, as God to our natural mind is incomprehensible, and we cannot understand him, except as we turn to God’s Word, and to the Spirit. Selah |
God’s objectives and priorities are very different than ours!
We all too often are looking for comfort and ease for our flesh; and God is trying to kill our flesh; we are looking to coddle our soul, but God is trying to get us to cooperate and work together, with our Spirit man, to train our soul!
We’re trying to find comfort and ease in this life; while God is trying to prepare us for the next life, for an eternity that is to be spent with Him and also for our ministry and calling while still in this life!
All too often we are looking for a vacation kind of life, that is devoid of problems; and here God is always trying to prepare us for war; and yet at the same time, instill in us enough confidence and faith, to where we can maintain our joy and peace inside, regardless of what troubles us from the outside.
We have but to look to scripture as our example of these truths; because that has been the pattern all along, even among the Saints of old; where they too often were put into situations where the temptation was to make this world their home; but God was testing them, to see if they would willing forsake this world, and live only for Him?
Until we can be of this same mind that was in Christ then our efforts are as kicking against the goads, so to speak; and the reason why we are finding our life so hard is because we are moving contrary to the flow of the Spirit.
The answer is to repent, meaning change the way we think, and then turn around!
To do otherwise means that we are impeding our progress, and not aiding it at all; and we are also impeding our spiritual growth too… for does not the Bible say:
3 John 1:2
2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. Selah
Shalom,
Skip Barland
From: Express Email Marketing [mailto:mailer_response@emailcounts.com]
On Behalf Of Two Listeners
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2010 2:04 AM
To: theskipper@cox.net
Subject: GC – June 8 – The Only Way
|
|||||||||||||||
SB SALT AND LIGHT MINISTRIES 