THINK VICTORY! "Yes -- But ..."

“Yes – But …!”

“Lord, I will follow You, but …” (Luke 9:61)

Several years after we were married, we jokingly told the Lord we only wanted three kids, would never homeschool, and please, we’d never live in New Jersey. Well you guessed it – we have four wonderful kids, have homeschooled all four of them, and yes, we live in New Jersey. I am glad they were the only three things we said we didn’t want to do!

We have all been there if we are willing to be honest. There are the times that we are seeking HIS will for our lives, and He steps in to ask us to do something that requires a action step of faith and we find ourselves saying: “Lord, I will follow You, but …!”

You’ve been there, right? Be honest! Sometimes the things He tells us to do just don’t make common sense. Take comfort in this – as you read through Scripture, that seems to be the way it has been for all the men that God has used for His glory.Abraham is listed in the “Hall of Fame” (Hebrews 11) as a men who believed God and took him at his word. He was promised a son, and finally in the tenth decade of his life, he becomes a Dad of the promised son, and God comes along and says, “Ok, Abraham – now that you have him – I want him! I want you to sacrifice Him. You heard me – put him on the altar and sacrifice him!” (That is my translation … so don’t panic!)

I love what Oswald Chambers said about this: “Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, ‘Yes, but – suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about …?’ Or we say, ‘Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”

He goes on to say: “Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk EVERYTHING you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.

By the test of COMMON SENSE, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it!” (My Utmost for His Highest – Oswald Chambers)

WOW! I will share tomorrow about how timely this was in the life of our ministry at America’s KESWICK! It is exciting.

Great Quote: The character of God is today, and always will be, exactly what it was in Bible times...God is forever what at that moment, three thousand years ago, He told Moses that He was. James I (J. I.) Packer