This is the crux of surrender…
This is the crux of why Jesus is God and is in submission to the Father…
He chose to submit under the Father…
The Father chose what would cause Himself the most pain…
Losing His Son…
He did this because He loved us…
Amazing Love how can it be that Thou my God wouldst die for me – as Charles Wesley said in his hymn “And Can it be?” (“And Can it be that I should gain?”)…
I see that this lies at the crux of our relationship with the Lord…
How much are we willing to yield to Him…
How much are we willing to let go of for Him…
Because He says so…
Because He requests it…
Our wives?
Our children?
Our grandchildren?
Our lives?
Our futures?
Our notoriety?
Our image?
Our happiness?
Our comfort?
Our experiences?
Our plans?
Our desires?
Our longings?
Our deep seated desires?
Our relationship with God?
“Our relationship with God?”, you say, “how could God get me to sacrifice that?”
Jesus sacrificed His with the Father when He was separated from Him for those 3 hours on the cross where He endured the Wrath of God on Himself for our sin, when He became sin so that we might become the Righteousness of God in Him…
What if God causes us to sacrifice the intimacy which we know with Him to go through a “hiding of His Face” experience or worse, like Job went through?
What if?
I have been through times like this in my life…
I didn’t do it very “gratefully”…
There’s something in my life right now – which I won’t go into – which is also “wrestling” with me with respect to this…
The Lord allows these sacrifices to test how much we really love Him…
You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. (Deuteronomy 8:2 NASB)
Not just His commandments as in what is written in scripture but also His personal commandments which He gives to us through His Spirit…
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25 NIV)
I am in a situation where He has made me promises – as He did to Abraham with Isaac – and then He is calling me to let go of those promises – sacrifice them – to seek Him in an even deeper way…
I used to stand on the promises of God – the personal promises of God – like Paul told Timothy to do,
This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, (1 Timothy 1:18 NASB)
but now I’m seeing that there is a willingness in me to sacrifice these – some which seem very enjoyable indeed “happy, happy, joy, joy” type promises – to be nothing and appear like nothing and continue to be nothing, to be a nothing, for the rest of my life…
I’ve actually come to a place where I’ve tossed up whether I should write any more on this blog…
I am willing…
To be unknown and to be a nothing…
There is nothing freer than to have no desires…
To not care whatever happens to you in your life…
There is a freedom from anger when you let go of every expectation which you might have…
Abraham was called “the friend of God” – no one else has ever been called that specifically in scripture…
Why was this?
He had a child of promise – huge “happy, happy, joy, joy” promises were linked to this son, Isaac…
In him (Abraham) and through him (Isaac – ultimately Jesus) all the nations of the earth were to be blessed…
But God said,
“Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” (Genesis 22:12b NASB)
Now I know that you fear God…
Wouldn’t God have known?
Apparently not…
I have had these experiences with God…
I am not going to share the details – that is not appropriate here…
When He knows that we fear Him and we feel His Pleasure it is so much better than anything which we have ever felt before…
Incomparable…
He leads us there and He leads us away from there…
He carries us…
Reach out to Him, He wants to carry you…
a house of prayer for the nations 