The Pathway To The Christ Life Being Emptied
The way of the Cross involves not only being broken but also being emptied. “It is no longer I”, said Paul. He had allowed himself to be emptied of the “I” so that Christ might live and rule in him.
We shall look at the life of Abraham in this chapter, to see what it means to be emptied. In James 2: 23, Abraham is called “the friend of God”. He was a type of those who, in the New Testament age, would be called the friends of God.
Jesus told His disciples, just before He went to the Cross, “You are My friend if you obey Me (as Abraham did). I no longer call you slaves, for a master does not confide in His slaves; now you are My friends, proved by the fact that I have told you everything the Father told Me” (John 15:14, 15 – LB).
God calls us in this New Testament age to be, not just His servants but His friends, entering into His secret counsels and understanding the hidden mysteries of His Word. Abraham was such a friend. God revealed His secrets to him (Gen. 18:17-19).
God blessed Abraham mightily. And we are told that “all who trust in Christ (can) share the same blessing Abraham received” (Gal. 3:9 – LB). What was the blessing with which God blessed Abraham? God’s promise to Abraham was, “I will bless you” (Gen. 12:2).
We saw in the last chapter what it means to be blessed by God. But God’s promise to Abraham did not end with “I will bless you”. He went on to say, “…and you will be a blessing to others”. This was God’s full purpose for Abraham and is His purpose for us today.
We are not only to be blessed but also to be channels through which that blessing is communicated to others. Galatians 3:14 makes it clear that the blessing of Abraham for us today is connected with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the One Who communicates the abundant life of Christ to us and then ministers that same life through us to others.
In James 2:21-23, where Abraham is called God’s friend, two incidents from Abraham’s life are mentioned:
- He believed God when God told him that he would have a son (v. 23 referring to Gen. 15:6)
- He offered up Isaac when God asked him to (v. 21 – referring to Gen. 22).
These two incidents described in Genesis 15 and 22 are brought together by James when referring to Abraham’s being called God’s friend. These two chapters in Genesis describe two important periods in Abraham’s life.
Moreover, in these two chapters, we find the first occurrences in the Bible of two important words – in Genesis 15:6, the word, “believe”, and in Genesis 22:5, the word, “worship”. Bible scholars tell us that there is such a thing as the law of first mention in Scripture.
This simply means that the first time an important word occurs in the Bible, there is a significance about the context in which the word occurs. So these two passages of Scripture have much to teach us concerning the true meanings of faith and worship.
And these were the two lessons that Abraham had to learn – what it meant to believe in God and what it meant to worship Him. Both of these are possible only as we accept the Cross as the instrument of our self-emptying.
Trusting God Abraham had to learn that trusting God meant not merely intellectual belief, but also being emptied of self-sufficiency and self-dependence.
In Genesis 15 (where the word “believe” occurs in verse 6), the paragraph begins with the words, “After these things…” (v. 1).
The previous chapter, to which that phrase refers back, indicates that it was a time of great triumph in Abraham’s life. With three hundred and eighteen untrained servants, he had gone out and defeated the armies of four kings.
And then at the end of all that, he had conducted himself so nobly before the king of Sodom, refusing to take any reward for his efforts. God had helped him marvellously on both of these occasions. Now, in the hour of his triumph, it was so easy for Abraham to feel self-sufficient.
At such a time, God spoke to Abraham and told him that he was going to have a son. And not only that, but God also said that through that son would come a seed that would be like the stars of heaven for number.
It looked almost impossible, but Abraham believed the Lord (Gen. 15:6). The Hebrew word translated “believe” here is “a man”, which is the word we use at the end of our prayers – “Amen”. It means, “It shall be so”.
When God told Abraham that he was going to have a son, he replied with an “Amen”, meaning in essence, “Lord, I don’t know how this is going to take place. But since You have said it, I believe it shall be so”.
God’s promise looked difficult to fulfil because Sarah was barren. Of course, Abraham himself was still fertile. So there was some hope. In other words, the promise was not exactly impossible, but certainly difficult.
Helping God out of a Tight Spot After Abraham heard God’s promise, he must have reasoned with himself and said, “Well, I suppose, I should help God out in this situation, since Sarah is barren”.
And so, he readily accepted Sarah’s suggestion to unite with Hagar his maid. He sincerely desired to help God. He felt that God was in a tight spot, having made a promise, which could not, humanly speaking, be fulfilled.
God’s reputation was at stake. And so, to save God from this awkward situation, Abraham united with Hagar and produced Ishmael.
But God rejected this seed of Abraham as unacceptable, for it was the product of man’s self-effort. So much of the motivation for Christian work in our day, alas, arises out of the same carnal reasoning that Abraham had.
Believers are told that God depends on their efforts and that if they let Him down, His purposes will fail of fulfilled. Things apparently have not worked out as God planned and as a result, He is in a tight spot now!
Some exhortations to Christian service give us the impression that the Almighty is now at His wit’s end and is desperately in need of our help!
No doubt, God uses human agency for the outworking of His purposes. He has voluntarily accepted this limitation because He wants us to have the privilege of cooperating with Him in His work.
But that certainly does not mean that if we disobey God, His work will remain undone. No. He is sovereign. There is certainly a work for Jesus that we can do; but if we don’t do it,
He will just pass us by and take up someone else to do the job – and we shall miss the privilege of being God’s co-workers. Puny men are not going to hinder God from carrying out His program.
God can carry on His work very well without our help. We need to recognize that fact. If our service for God originates out of any idea that we are helping God out of a tight spot, we shall only produce unacceptable Ishmaels.
That service which has its roots in human energy and fleshly wisdom and in human ability and natural talents (even at their very best) is totally unacceptable to God. Ishmael may be very smart and impressive.
Abraham may even cry out to God saying, “Oh that Ishmael might live before Thee” (Gen. 17:18). But God’s answer is “No. He was born through your strength, Abraham. So I cannot accept him, however good he may be”.
And so with service that originates from ourselves. If there is any human explanation for our Christian service – if it is merely the result of excellent theological training that our sharp mints have assimilated, or made possible because we have access to enough money to support ourselves in Christian work.
Then however impressive our work may appear in the eyes of men, it will be T>urnt up in the day of testing as wood, hay and straw. That day will reveal the multitude of “Ishmaels” produced by well-meaning Christians, who were never emptied of their self-sufficiency.
The only work that will abide for eternity is that which is produced in humble dependence upon the power of God’s Holy Spirit. May God help us to learn that lesson now, instead of regretting Christ’s judgment.
Works of Faith Our self-life is so subtle and deceitful that it can enter the very sanctuary of God and attempt to serve Him We have to watch that – and put self to death even when it seeks to serve God.
God’s work has to be a work of faith – that is one that originates in man’s helpless dependence upon God. It is therefore not a question of how effective our work is in the eyes of men or in our own eyes.
The important question is whether the work is the result of the Holy Spirit’s work or our own. God is not so much interested in how much is done, as in the question of whose power has energized the work.
Was the work done by the power of money and intellectual ability, or by the power of the Holy Spirit? This is the real test of a spiritual work, a work of faith In other words, God is more interested in quality than in quantity.
God’s true work carries on today, as of old, not by human power or might, but by the power of the Holy Spirit (Zech. 4:6). We forget this truth to our own peril.
Man’s Extremity – God’s Opportunity Isaac, unlike Ishmael, was not the product of Abraham’s strength, for Abraham had become sterile by then. Isaac was born through God’s strengthening impotent Abraham. This is the type of service that lasts for eternity.
One “Isaac” is worth a thousand “Ishmaels”. All “Ishmael” will have to be cast off finally. Abraham could keep Ishmael for some time but finally, God asked him to cast him out (Gen. 21:10-14). Only Isaac could remain with him.
There is a spiritual lesson here. That service which is the result of God working through us, will alone remain for eternity. Everything else will be burnt up. You may have heard the saying, “Only one life, will soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last”.
It would be more accurate to say, “Only what Christ does through me will last”. Paul lived and laboured according to God’s living and working through him (Gal. 2:20; and Col. 1:29). Hence his life and labours were very effective. He lived by faith and he worked by faith.
In Genesis 16:16, we read that Abraham was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael. In the very next verse (Gen. 17:1), we read that Abraham was 99 years old when God appeared to him again. We see here a gap of thirteen years.
Those were years when God waited for Abraham to become impotent. God could not fulfil His promise, till Abraham had become impotent. This is God’s way with all His servants.
He cannot work through them till they recognize their impotence. And in some cases, He has to wait for many years. Abraham needed to learn what it really meant to trust God. He had to learn that it was only when he became impotent that he could truly exercise faith.
In Romans 4:19-21, we read that although Abraham knew that his body was impotent to produce a son, yet that did not worry him. He was strong in faith and glorified God by believing that God was well able to perform what He had promised.
He did not waver in unbelief, for his feet stood firm on the rock of God’s Word to him. But when could Abraham exercise such faith? Only when he had come to an end of all confidence in his own ability.
We too can exercise real faith only when we reach that state of utter helplessness. This is God’s way, so that no flesh may ever glory in His presence.
This does not however mean that we do nothing. No. God does not want us to be reduced to a state of inactivity. That is the other extreme of error. God used Abraham to produce Isaac.
God didn’t do it all by Himself, for Isaac was not born, apart from Abraham, through a virgin birth. No. But there was a difference between the birth of Ishmael and the birth of Isaac.
In both cases, Abraham was the father. But in the first case, it was in dependence upon his own strength; in the second, in dependence upon the power of God. That was the difference — and what a vital difference!
No Confidence in the Flesh At the end of the thirteen years of waiting, when God appeared to Abraham, He gave him the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 17:11). Circumcision involved a cutting-off and a casting-off of human flesh.
It symbolised a casting off of all confidence in self. In Philippians 3:3, Paul explains what circumcision means. He says there, “We are the circumcision… who have no confidence in the flesh”.
Notice, that in the very same year that Abraham obeyed God and circumcised himself, Isaac was conceived (cf. Gen. 17:1 and 21:5). There is a lesson for us to learn here. God waits until we learn to put no confidence in ourselves and our abilities.
And when we finally come to the place where we realise that it is impossible for us in ourselves to serve God and co-please Him (Rom. 8:8), and when we trust God to work through us, then He takes us up and does eternal work through us.
At the age of 85, the birth of a child to Abraham looked difficult. By the time he was 99 and impotent, that which had been difficult had now become impossible. Then God acted. Someone has said that in a true work of God, there are three stages
Difficult, Impossible and Done! Human wisdom finds it difficult to follow such reasoning, for spiritual truth is foolishness to the natural mind. But this is God’s way.
No flesh will ever be able to glory in God’s presence, either now or in eternity. God is working to the point where finally Christ will have pre-eminence in all things (Col. 1:18).
If there is going to be some work in Heaven, which lasts for eternity, which has been done by human ingenuity and cleverness, then all through eternity some man will be able to take the credit for it.
But God is going to make sure that it will not be so. All that ministers to human glory will be burnt up at the judgement seat of Christ.
Here on earth, men may receive the credit for something they do, but that will all be reduced to ashes before we reach the shores of eternity.
One of these days, God will gather up all things in Christ and then throughout eternal ages Christ alone will have the pre-eminence.
Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis was a great woman of God, whose writings have led many Christians to a deeper understanding of the Cross in the believer’s life.
Her biography records that there was a time in her life when after some years of serving God, she came to a place of dissatisfaction with the results of her labours. She was born again, but she realized that she needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit as well.
And so she sought God’s face earnestly for this. One day, while in prayer, she saw a vision of a hand holding a bundle of dirty rags. A voice said, “This is the result of all your service for Me thus far”. She was surprised.
Here she was, a born-again and consecrated child of God. Surely this was not a picture of her labours. But the Lord showed her that it was her self-life that she had consecrated to God and that self could produce only dirty rags.
And then the Lord spoke to her that she needed to be crucified. This was difficult for her to accept initially. But she did. And as a result, rivers of living water began to flow through her life, bringing blessing and refreshment to thousands in many parts of the world.
Truly, she inherited Abraham’s blessing – and people of many nations were blessed through her. Self must be crucified before there can be service that pleases God.
We may serve God with all our hearts and then say, “Lord, please accept these Ishmaels that I have produced”. But God will say, No! He will say, No! now and He will say No! in eternity.
Dependence on the Hoty Spirit Let us test ourselves in one area – the area of prayer. Do we really know what it is to pray, what the Bible calls “the prayer of faith”? It is only when we come to an end of ourselves that we can do that.
For, as Dr. 0. Hallesby, has said, prayer is simply confessing our helplessness to God. There is no credit in uttering beautiful, eloquent and impressive prayers. Such ordinary praying can be done by anyone — even by a heathen.
But the prayer of faith can come only from one who has recognized his impotence and utter helplessness without God. This is what it means to “pray in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18), and that is the only type of prayer that brings an answer.
As someone has said, what we need in our day, is not more prayer but more answered prayer. Let us not fool ourselves, like the heathen, that God is pleased by our much praying. No. Prayer has no value before God if it does not arise out of recognition of our own impotence.
So little of evangelical Christian work today is a work of faith. We have so many electronic gadgets and other similar aids to help us in our service to the Lord, that many of us are, all unconsciously, depending on them, rather than on the Lord.
Apparently one does not need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, These days, to serve the Lord. All one “needs is a tape recorder, a movie projector with a few Christian movies, audio-visual aids, and some rich businessmen to provide financial support.
If added to these, one also has a dynamic personality and eloquence or a trained singing voice, he can go out and “win souls for Christ”! How far evangelical Christianity has drifted from the faith of the apostles!
What a tragedy that the techniques of the business world are brought into the sanctuary of God. Let us never be fooled by the apparent success of these methods. We can accumulate statistics of our “conversions”, but we shall realize in eternity that they were spurious.
Heaven does not rejoice over our labours, because we have not delivered souls from their self-centredness, but merely entertained them and given them a good time.
God’s way has not changed. Even today, we need to be emptied of our self-sufficiency and filled with the Spirit of God, if we are to produce “Isaacs” that please God.
The Bible says, “Cursed be the man who depends on man and who makes his self-sufficiency the arm on which he leans….for he shall be like a barren tree” (Jer. 17:5 – paraphrase). However much such a man may give the appearance of fruitfulness to others, he will stand in eternity like a barren tree, for his work originated in himself and in dependence on human energies and human resources.
On the other hand, it says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and has made the Lord his confidence. He is like a tree planted along a riverbank, with its roots reaching deep into the water… its leaves stay green and it goes right on producing all its luscious fruit”. (Jer. 17:7, 8 – LB)
To change the illustration (to the one found in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15), what are we building? Wood, hay and straw, or gold, silver and precious stones.
One ounce of gold is worth more than a ton of straw after the fire has done its work. Only genuine works of faith will abide on that day of testing.
An End of Ourselves In Edith Schaeffer’s book. Eabri recounts how God brought her husband Francis Schaeffer and his co-workers again and again to the point of utter helplessness.
More than once they found that there was no way out of the impasse. The enemies of the gospel almost triumphed at many a point. In their impotence, they looked to God to work on their behalf.
And He did – not just once or twice but repeatedly. This is the type of work – a work of faith – that will remain for eternity.
It is not the size of a work that impresses God. The world looks for size and-numbers. But God is looking for works of faith even if they are the size of mustard seeds.
And so, when God brings us to an end of ourselves, hedging us in on every side and shattering our hopes, let us cake heart! He is preparing us for greater usefulness by bringing us first to the place of impotence.
He’s equipping us to produce Isaacs. This was how Jesus prepared His apostles for His service. What do you think was the purpose of His training them for three and a half gears?
They were not being coached to write scholarly theses that would earn each of them a doctorate in theology. That’s how some people today feel they can be equipped to serve the Lord.
But Jesus didn’t train His apostles for that. None of the twelve disciples (except perhaps Judas Iscariot) would have qualified for a basic theological degree (by our standards), even if they had cried.
Jesus trained them to learn one lesson primarily – that, without Him they could do nothing (John 15:5). And, I tell you, a man who has learned that lesson is worth more than a hundred theological professors who haven’t learnt that lesson.
Total dependence upon God is the mark of the true servant of God. It was true even of the Lord Jesus Christ, when He was on earth, as the Servant of Jehovah. In a prophetic reference to Him in Isaiah 42:1, God says, “Behold My Servant, whom I uphold”. He does not stand in His own strength; He is upheld by God.
Because Christ emptied Himself thus, God put His Spirit upon Him, as the next verse says (Isa. 42:2). Indeed, it is only on those who have come to an end of themselves and who have emptied themselves of self-confidence and self-sufficiency, that God pours out His Spirit.
Look at some of the remarkable statements that Jesus made, which clearly show how emptied of self He was:
“The Son can do nothing of Himself” (John 5:19).
“I can of Mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30).
“I do nothing of Myself” (John 8:28).
“I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father Who sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what 1 should speak” (John 12:49). “The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself” (John 14:10).
Amazing! The perfect, sinless Son of God lived by faith. Emptied of all dependence upon His own self, He depended entirely on His Father. It is thus that God calls us to live too.
When we are self-sufficient, we try to use God to help us serve Him. But when we are emptied, God can use us. A. B. Simpson, that great man of God who founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance, tells us how he learnt this lesson in his own life.
As a young pastor, he struggled to serve God with his own energies, until he was broken down in health. Finally, he met with God in such a way that it changed his whole outlook on Christian service.
He had been using God. Henceforth he would let God use him. He expressed his experience in these words:
“Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling, now it is His Word;
Once His gift 1 wanted, now the Giver own;
Once I sought healing, now Himself alone.
Once ‘twas painful trying, now ‘tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation, now the uttermost;
Once ‘twas ceaseless holding, now He holds me fast;
Once ‘twas constant drifting now my anchor’s cast.
Once ‘twas busy planning, now ‘tis trustful prayer;
Once ‘twas anxious caring, now He has the care;
Once ‘twas what I wanted, now what Jesus says;
Once ‘twas constant asking, now ‘tis ceaseless praise.
Once it was my working, His it hence shall be;
Once I tried to use Him, now He uses me;
Once the power I wanted, now the Mighty One;
Once for self 1 laboured, now for Him alone.
Once I hoped in Jesus, now I know He’s mine;
Once my lamps were dying, now they brightly shine;
Once- for death, I waited, now His coming hail;
And my hopes are anchored safe within the veil.
All in all forever, Jesus, will I sing,
Everything in Jesus, and Jesus everything.”
This is what it means to trust God. And this was the first lesson that Abraham had to learn.
Worshipping God The second lesson that Abraham had to learn was the true meaning of worship. If trusting God means to be emptied of self-confidence and self-sufficiency, worshipping God means to be emptied of everything (including one’s possessions).
As in Genesis 15, in Genesis 22 also, the paragraph begins with the phrase, “After these things…”. Here too, as we look at the circumstances that immediately precede this hour of testing, we find Abraham in a triumphant position.
The heathen bad came to him and said, “Abraham, we’ve been watching your life and we know that God is with you in all that you do” (Gen. 21:22). No doubt they had heard of the miraculous way in which Sarah had conceived and were convinced that God was with this family.
Ishmael having been sent away, Isaac was now the darling of Abraham’s heart. Abraham stood in grave danger, at such a time, of losing his first love and devotion to God. And so God tested him again and told him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice.
Sacrifice and Worship Have we ever heard God calling us to hard and difficult tasks like that? Or do we only hear Him comforting us with promises all the time? Oswald Chambers has said that if we have never heard God speaking a hard word to us, it is doubtful whether we have ever really heard God at all.
It is very easy for our carnal minds to imagine that God is speaking to us with comforting promises all the time. Because we do not like the hard way, we can be deaf to God’s voice when He calls us to a difficult task.
But Abraham had ears to hear, and a heart that was willing to obey anything that God commanded He rose up early the next morning and went forth to obey God (v. 3).
The record does not tell us what the old patriarch went through, during the previous night, after God had spoken to him.
I am sure he did not sleep that night. He must have kept awake and gone and looked at his beloved son again and again, and the tears must have rolled down his eyes as he thought of what he had to do to him.
How difficult it must have been for Abraham to offer up the son of his old age. But he was willing to obey God at any cost. Fifty years or so, earlier, he had put his hand to the plough when God called him in Ur; and he would not now look back.
“Keep me from looking back.
The handles of my plough with tears are wet,
The shears wield test are spoiled, and yet and yet
My God! My God! Keep me from turning back”.
There were no complaints and no questions. Abraham did not say, “Lord, I’ve been so faithful already. Why do you ask this hard thing also?”. Neither did he say, “Lord, I’ve already sacrificed so much – much more than all those around me.
Why do you call me to sacrifice more?”. Many believers often compare the sacrifices they have made with those that others have made. And they hesitate when God calls them to go further than others around them. But not so Abraham.
There was no limit to his obedience and no end to his willingness to sacrifice for his God. No wonder he became the friend of God.
There was faith in Abraham’s heart as he went up to sacrifice Isaac, that God would somehow raise his son from the dead. Hebrews 11:19 tells us that. God had already given Abraham a foretaste of resurrection-power in his own body and in Sarah’s, through the birth of Isaac.
Surely it would be no problem for such a God to bring back to life Isaac who was slain on the altar. And so Abraham tells his servants when leaving them at the foot of Mount Moriah, “I and the lad will go yonder and worship and (we will both) come (back) again co you” (v. 5). That was a word of faith. He believed that Isaac would come back with him.
Notice too that he tells his servants, “We are going to worship God”. He is not complaining that God is requiring too much from him, neither is he boasting about the marvellous sacrifice that he is about to make for God.
No. Abraham did not belong to that number who kept drawing the attention of others subtly to the sacrifices that they had made in their lives for God. Abraham said he was going to worship his God. And there we understand something of the real meaning of worship.
Remember how Jesus once said, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). Surely it must have been here on Mount Moriah that Abraham saw the day of Christ.
In prophetic vision, the aged patriarch saw in his own action, a picture (faint though it be) of that day when God the Father Himself would lead His only begotten Son up Calvary’s hill and offer Him up as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind.
And that day on Mount Moriah, Abraham knew something of what it would cost the heart of God to save a wayward world. He came into a place of intimate fellowship with the heart of God that morning. Yes, he worshipped God – not just with beautiful words and hymns, but through costly obedience and sacrifice.
A deep and intimate knowledge of God can come only through such obedience. We may accumulate plenty of accurate theological information in our minds, but real spiritual knowledge can come only when a man has given up everything to God. There is no other way.
The Giver or His Gift? Abraham was being tested here as to whether he loved the Giver or His gifts more. Isaac was no doubt the gift of God, but Abraham was in danger of having an inordinate affection for his son. I
Isaac was beginning to become an idol who would cloud Abraham’s spiritual vision. And so God intervened to save Abraham from such a tragedy. In The Pursuit of God, Dr. A.W. Tozer speaks of the blessedness of possessing nothing.
God was teaching Abraham on Mount Moriah this blessedness of being emptied of everything and possessing nothing. Before that day, Abraham had held Isaac with a possessive spirit.
But after he laid his son on that altar and gave him up to God, he never possessed Isaac again. Oh yes, God gave Isaac back to Abraham, and Abraham had him with him in his house.
But he never possessed Isaac as his own again. Isaac, thenceforth, was God’s. Abraham held Isaac as a steward holds the property of his master. In other words, he had Isaac, but he never again possessed him.
This is to be our attitude to all the things of this world. We can have them and use them. But we are never to cling to any one of them. Everything we own should have been placed on the altar and given completely to God.
We must possess nothing. We can then keep only that which God gives back to us from the altar – and we are to keep even such things only as stewards. Only then can we truly worship God. This is the pathway to the glory of the Christ-life.
This principle does not apply to material things alone. It applies to spiritual gifts as well. It is possible for us to hold even the gifts of the Holy Spirit in a possessive way. Was not Isaac the gift of God?
Why couldn’t Abraham hold on to him then? To have to send away Ishmael was understandable because he was not the promised seed. But Isaac’s case was different. He was God’s gift, produced in God’s strength.
Why should Abraham have to give him up as well And so we may argue too. We can understand the need to give up our attachment to the things of the world. But surely, we feel, we can hold on to the gifts that God Himself has given us.
But God says, “No. Lay even your spiritual gifts (which I have given you) on-me altar and give them back to Me, lest they fill your life and cloud out your vision of Me, the Giver”. God would have us delivered from any inordinate attachment to even the most sacred gifts of the Spirit that He has given us.
He wants us to sacrifice even the “Isaacs” that we have received from Him (in answer to our fasting and prayer) and not cling to any one of them. Is this not what many good believers in our day have not seen?
They have given up their Ishmaels but not their Isaacs. The gift that God gave them they have begun to use to glorify themselves – like the prodigal son, who took his father’s gifts and spent them on himself.
What is it that fills our vision – our gifts and our ministry, or the Giver Himself? This is what we need to ask ourselves constantly. We are most in danger when God has blessed us much and used us greatly.
It is so easy at such times to lose the vision of God. We need to go back to the altar on Mount Moriah again and again. We need to pray like Jim Eliot did, “Lord, deliver me from clutching and grabbing. Give me the open Palm to receive the nail of Calvary”.
This is true worship – where the Giver Himself fills our hearts and our vision. Then we can safely use the gifts. Otherwise, we shall abuse God’s gifts and prostitute them for selfish uses.
Why is there such misuse of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our day? Is not the reason here – that the gifts have so filled the vision of many Christians that they have lost sight of the Giver?
That which Costs Us Everything Abraham’s devotion was tested that day when God asked him for Isaac. Had God asked Abraham for 10,000 sheep or 5,000 rams, that would have been far easier for Abraham to offer.
But one Isaac cost him everything, and he decided to offer nothing less than what God asked for.
Abraham could have echoed the words that David said, years later, “I will never offer to my God that which costs me nothing” (2 Sam. 24:24). Yes, true worship involves our offering to God that which costs us everything.
It is more than mere coincidence that it was on this very spot on Mount Moriah (where Abraham offered Isaac), that the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite was also located (where David said those words just quoted).
And finally, Solomon built his famous temple on this very spot too (2 Chron. 3:1). God ordained His House to be built in the place where two of His servants (Abraham and David) had made costly sacrifices.
That was where the fire fell from Heaven and that was where the glory of God was seen (2 Chron. 7:1). It is even so today.
God builds His true Church and manifests His power and glory where He finds men and women who are willing to deny themselves and offer to Him that which costs them everything.
Does our Christianity cost us something? Is our service for God an easygoing, cheap thing that does not cost us much travail of soul? Does our prayer life cost us something? Have we drawn a limit to the sacrifices we are willing to make for God?
Do we look for ease and comfort? And are we still expecting the fire to fall and the glory of God to be seen in our lives?
Let us not deceive ourselves. The fullness of the Holy Spirit can result only from a wholehearted giving of ourselves to God.
The way of the Cross is difficult. How difficult it must have been for Abraham to face the thought of slaying his son himself. It is not easy for us to see our children suffering as a result of the stand we have taken for God.
That can be very costly. But blessed are we, if we are willing even for that. God is no man’s debtor. If we have honoured Him, He will certainly honour us; and we shall find our children following God too, as Isaac followed in Abraham’s footsteps.
Isaac’s willingness to be tied to the altar and slain was itself an indication of his devotion to his father’s God. He was a strong and able-bodied young man, and his aged father could never have tied him to the altar if he himself had not been willing.
But Isaac had seen -the reality of God in his father’s life, and so he too was willing to submit to anything that God desired.
On the other hand, many believers have often lowered their high standards and compromised Christian principles, for the sake of some material advantage for their children – only to see their children growing up to break their hearts and live for the world.
Oh, the tragedy of it! Heaven’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who have followed in Abraham’s footsteps, and who like him have not withheld anything from God, whatever the cost.
I remember hearing the story of a young American couple who went to China as missionaries before the Communists took over that land. They asked their mission board to assign them to some virgin territory that had not yet been evangelized.
Accordingly, they were posted to a little village in the interior, near Tibet. They laboured faithfully there for seven years but did not see a single soul saved. God then gave them a gift of a baby daughter.
And as that daughter grew up, they saw a miracle taking place before their eyes. They taught their little girl Bible verses and choruses in the local language, and she in turn taught them to the children with whom she played.
Those children went home and taught these verses to their parents. Soon one person was converted to Christ.
This missionary couple continued to labour there for another fourteen years (making a total of 21 years) without a furlough, and in that period seven more souls were saved. (God doesn’t measure success by statistics as men do.
This couple had spent 21 years to show 8 souls the way to eternal life. Surely their reward will be great when Christ returns). At the end of those 21 years, one day the father noticed a patch on the hand of his 14-year-old daughter.
They took her to a doctor who told them that the girl had contracted leprosy. It broke their hearts to think of what their child had to suffer because of their devotion to God and to His call. The mother and daughter travelled back to America for treatment.
But the man himself stayed on in China. When asked why he did not go back to America with his family, he replied, “I would have liked to have gone home with my family. But back there in my mission station, there are eight souls who need to be instructed and fed.
If someone else replaces me, it will take years before they develop confidence in him. And so I feel I should go back”, it cost that family everything they had, to serve God.
So many believers who have so much, give so little to God. But a few who have so little, give so much. And it is through this small and faithful remnant that God builds His Church.
The kingdom of God does not come through spectacular outward show, but through men of God such as that missionary. Some of these men may never even be heard of on earth. But they shall shine as stars in eternity.
The apostle Paul could have chosen an easy life when he was saved on the Damascus Road. He could have settled down to a comfortable life as a Christian businessman in Antioch or in Tarshish he didn’t do that.
He went out to serve God and endured hardship. He got 195 stripes on his back, he was stoned suffered a shipwreck, and faced many dangers in his service to God. If we were to ask him why he endured all that, he’d say, “When I gave my life to Jesus, I determined that I would never offer to Him any service that cost me nothing”.
The Moravian brethren, two hundred years ago, formed one of the greatest missionary movements that the world has ever seen. Two of their number heard of a slave colony in the West Indies and voluntarily sold themselves as slaves for the rest of their lives.
In order to get into that island to preach the gospel to the slaves there Two others heard of a leper colony in Africa where no one was allowed to enter and return, for fear that the disease might spread.
They volunteered to go into that leper colony for the rest of their lives, in order to present Christ to the inmates of the colony. These Moravian brethren knew what it was to worship God, by offering Him that which cost them everything.
How shallow and superficial are our lives and labours compared with those of men like these. How much has it cost us to serve God – in terms of loss of money, comfort, reputation, honour and health?
Do we realise that we do not really know what it is to worship God if our Christianity has not cost us everything that this world counts dear? Those who serve God wholeheartedly, giving up everything for Him, are the only ones who will have no regret in eternity. The Lord is calling today for those who will follow Him in the pathway of the Cross – to be emptied of everything.
“So send I you – to labour unrewarded,
To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown,
To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing,
So send I you – to toil for Me alone.
So send I you – to bind the bruised and broken,
O’er wandering souls to work, to weep, to wake,
To bear the burdens of a world aweary,
So send I you – to suffer for My sake.
So send I you.- to loneliness and longing,
With heart a-hungering for the loved and known;
Forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one,
So send I you – to know My love alone.
So send 1 you – to leave your life’s ambitions,
To die to dear desire, self-will resign,
To labour long and lore when men revile you,
So send 1 you – to lose your life in Mine.
So send 1 you – to hearts made hard by hatred,
To eyes made blind because they will not see;
To spend though it is blood – to spend and spare not
So send 1 you – to taste of Calvary.
“A My Father hath sent Me, so send 1 you.”
This is the way of power. And we need to be reminded of it again on a day when many think that there are shortcuts and once-for-all experiences that guarantee spiritual power.
The way of the Cross alone is the way of power. Jesus steadfastly set His face to go to the Cross. What about us? We shall face this choice daily. If we are looking for three easy steps to a victorious life, then the Bible has no message for us.
But if we are willing to pay the price of denying ourselves and taking up our Cross daily and following Jesus, then we shall indeed know the power of the Spirit of God resting upon us for our life and service.