Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Friday 01/28/2011)

Are You Just Willing To Lay Still?

Genesis 22:9-10 (New Living Translation)

⁹ When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. ¹⁰ And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice.

Genesis 22:9-10 (Amplified Bible)

⁹When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there; then he laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on the wood. ¹⁰And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took hold of the knife to slay his son.

            Writing these devotionals can be tricky and very dangerous.  It seems that most of the subject matters God gives or inspires me to address I am getting tried in, or I can rest assured that I am soon to face it, if I have not already.  This afternoon when I turned on my computer I received a very nasty email, from a person I had only encountered briefly.  I was shocked we had not been in touch for months outside of her receipt of the devotionals, so to receive an email of the nature was shocking and disturbing.  My first thought was to want to write back and do what…that is right give her a piece of my mind, but the Holy Spirit reminded, me it was not my battle.  My response was shocking even for me, I apologized for whatever I had done to irritate or annoy her, and prayed God’s blessings upon her. In those moments after I sent that email I sat and stared at the computer screen and in a very still small voice deep down I could hear, “there are parts of you that are being sacrificed, and parts of you that are being crucified.”  My eyes were as full as my heart in those moments; realizing everything did not need a response, nor did it need my input God was handling it, it just needed to let Him have it.
            Often times it is hard for us to be taken to the alter and laid their ready for God to sacrifice us, or a part of us that He wants yielded to Him, and we not call out or ask “Hey God why me, or does that really have to die now?”  We want to try to naw the ropes off and set ourselves free.  But we lack the understanding that God is testing our obedience and our willingness to really serve Him.  If we would just lay there and let Him have His way He will replace those things with something wonderful.  He will bring us into a place with Him that we can identify Him, hear His voice and see Him that much clearer.  But instead because our flesh does not often understand the purpose of the sacrifices that need to be made to get to God and be in His will and follow Him; or our flesh just does not want to go through the pain of submission, we wrestle with becoming the sacrifice and we call out or fight against what He is trying to do.  If only we could see that becoming the willing sacrifice is all God really wants, a yielded vessel.   He wants to see will we willingly give our lives to Him.  All of who we are, to gain all of who He is.  When we look at it that way the exchange hardly seems fair, it seems we are gaining so much more than we are giving.  God wants us to lay us all out before Him. It is amazing to me how so many of us try to hide, things from God, but He knows us better than we know ourselves, he knows the hairs on our heads, and the breathes that we take and the thoughts that we think, why should we not want to give it all to Him, surrender to Him, in humble and silent surrender, desiring that He make us over, creating in us a clean heart and renewing a right spirit, a better spirit and a better life.
            To maximize our relationship with God, and to really come into a place of worship, we must become the sacrifice.  We must become what we offer to God. Not pieces of us, but all of us; every desire, every thought, every character flaw, and every accomplishment.  All to Jesus we should yearn to surrender, understanding that God is a loving Father, and Jesus is our elder brother who will take what we offer and receive it and return unto us, more than we have given, and better than what we could have ever thought to do. You have to be willing to lay still and let Him do, what He needs to do in us, with no help and no input from, us believe me when I say God has got it well in hand!