Heaven’s Hero, Abraham, Part Two
In the last study on Abraham we seen how the natural out working of faith in God is obedience to God Word. Abraham displayed an unconditional spontaneous obedience "to go for God" and then also to "let go" of what ever or whoever was holding him back from going for God.
Faith in God does not force us to obey, faith motivate and encourages us to act upon God Word. Acting in faith involves a decision of the human will, Heb 11:19 "Abraham reasoned", which means he made a mental deduction, he came to the conclusion that his God was a faithful, powerful promise keeping God.
Abraham won the battle of the mind and was convinced that God was able. The apostle Paul won the battle of the mind to believe in God when he said " For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angles nor demons . ...... will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus" and "being confident of this that he who has begun a good work in you will carry it onto completion until the day of Christ Jesus" Rom 8:38-39, Phil 1:6. The big question for us is ’are we convinced about what God has promised to do in are lives ?’
Faith that is active in our lives follows a process, firstly it comes from God to our spirits making them alive to God {Eph 2:8}, secondly faith must be allowed to saturate our minds and thirdly faith is put into action by trusting, confessing or sacrificing.
Paul said "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" faith that continually trusts in God against all the odds needs to overcome the weakness of the human mind that clings to the visible, natural or logical things of this world. Faith in our mind needs to be "sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" {Heb 11:1}. Faith when allowed to saturate our minds enables us to believe that the impossible is possible. One person has defined faith in this way;
"Faith is sitting on a branch while the Devil is sawing through it and believing the tree will fall down." The decision to trust in God needs to be made in the mind, circumstances may say it is impossible and God’s Word may say it is possible, we must then decide to trust or not to trust. There is a story of a man who fell off a cliff but managed to grab hold of a branch on his way down. He hung there and shouted to the top "is there anybody up there? "Yes came the reply, God is up here! The man said "Can you help me, God ?" "Yes" replied God. The man said "What do you want me to do ?" God said "let go of the branch" There was a pause. Then the man said "is there anybody else up there."
THE COST
God’s way can sometimes be costly. God called Abraham to make the ultimate sacrifice of offering his only son on an alter, leaving his home and family who all have seemed insignificant in comparison to surrendering his only son. God’s way is costly because just as He give his best, Jesus, for us, He wants us to give Him our best. Abraham could have offered his first son Ishmale but that was not his best. If you cannot give God your best then God does not want whatever else you can give to Him!
Many Christians struggle to act in faith because it calls for a costly sacrifice. A sacrifice of our time, our tithe, our friends is hard because God calls for our best.
THE CONFLICT
Abraham faced a conflict of his faith in God every step of the way up the mountain to offer his only son on an alter. Before faith in God can be put into action it must overcome a mental wall that blocks the process of faith in God.
Abraham’s faith faced the wall of "non experience", there was no previous account of any one being raised from the dead, therefore Abraham could not say "it has happened before therefore it can happen again." Faith believes God for the for the un-experienced and does not live in past blessings.
Abraham’s faith faced the wall of "natural logic." Abraham like every one of us lived according to the logic of this world that looks to the natural and material to substantiate the possible. Faith believes God for the unseen and impossible, it does not need material props to act as a foundation to faith in God.
To overcome our mental walls we must learn to reason as Abraham reasoned. Abraham simply worked out that God was a faithful promise keeping God. Abraham did not know how but he knew that God would give back to him in abundance. When we give to God He promises to give back to us more than we can ever give out, you can try but you’ll never out give God see Mark 10:29-30
"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.
Luke 6:38
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
Abraham’s reasoning went against a lack of previous experience and a lack of logical proof to believe the impossible is possible with God. Abraham reasoned like a child, he seen no reason why he could not receive his son back form the dead. The wisdom of experience can sometimes be a blockage to the reward of faith in God.
THE CONFESSION
Abraham had no doubt that God would give him back his son, he was so convinced of God’s promised that he confessed that he would return with his son, see Gen 22:5. Abraham’s faith broke through the mental walls to confess his continual trust and dependence in God.
Christians sometimes find easy to confess by faith that Jesus is Lord and that He is coming back again. However, when it comes to confessing by faith that the Lord will provide their "daily bread", meeting their practical every day needs they find it very hard to trust God.
To confess with out doubt that God will provide we need to set aside the natural logic that says "the impossible is impossible" and begin to reason that God is a God who majors in making the impossible possible.
