You Don’t Love God? What’s Wrong With You?
Unpopular God But I Love Him
Genesis 22:14
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen. Genesis 22:14
It is becoming a crime in America to publicly express a love for God.
Despite the fact that the nation itself was built upon godly principles, founded by men and women seeking religious freedom, and predicated on godly ideas, the nation has drifted away from open expressions of godliness.
Then there are those who want to remove "under God" from the pledge of allegiance.
Still others, want "In God we trust" removed from American currency. There are great debates in hundreds of cities across America as to whether prayers can be said in schools or mumbled by those beginning a work or classroom day.
Those who openly express faith in God are called far right, religious fanatics and borderline nut cases. It is not politically correct these days to even say "Merry Christmas" or "Jesus is the reason for the season."
The next step after being dubbed politically incorrect is for faith in God to be declared wrong as it has been outlawed in many nations of the world.
Expressing a faith in God is becoming unfashionable at the least.
There are many who hear the words of scripture recorded in Deut.6:5 which reminds us that we should Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
As Christians, we should openly express our love for God and for Jesus Christ His son.
This text concludes the description of the Patriarch Abrahams decision to comply with the command of God that he sacrifice his son Isaac.
The willingness of Abraham to obey God is one of the greatest examples of Faith in the Bible. When he traveled to the mountain top Abraham carried with him the essentials of the sacrifice, fire, wood and his son.
Abraham's obedience is often referenced but there is a wealth of importance in the question asked by young Isaac, Where is the lamb?
Abraham's reply was prophetic, "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering," and with this promise from God Abraham was content.
As we look at this story his prediction or prophetic statement was amplified with further details as time went on. This was a type and shadow of Jesus who would be "brought as a lamb to the slaughter" for the transgression of Jehovah's people.
Just before he sacrificed Isaac, God showed Abraham a ram caught in the bushes that became the ultimate sacrifice instead of his son.
He named the place Jehovah-Jireh, or The Lord will provide.
The power of this text is in the name that Abraham gave the site. It is commonly reported that Jehovah-Jireh means, God will provide but its just as important to know the full meaning of the name in Hebrew which is that the Lord sees or foresees and He provides.In the Hebrew Bible, it is translated "to see" or "to appear", and it is often used to refer to certain people who could foresee such as the Prophets. Obviously, there might be some confusion as to how the word "to see" can then also be translated to "provide", unless we consider the nature of Almighty God who is El Shaddai which means that God is "The All-Sufficient One".
Now lets break these words down: the Hebrew word "Shaddai" signifies One who nourishes, supplies, and satisfies (Isaiah 60:16, 66:10-13).
Combined with the word for God, "El", it then becomes the "One mighty to nourish, satisfy, and supply".
While Elohim is the God who creates, in the name "Shaddai" God reveals Himself as the God who compels nature to do what is contrary to itself. He is able to triumph over every obstacle and all opposition; He is able to subdue all things to Himself. All of these names — whether individually or collectively — naturally would be intensified when combined with "El" and would refer to YHWH as the One who mightily nourishes, satisfies, protects, and supplies His people. El Shaddai is our All-Sufficient Sustainer. It is God as "El" who helps, and it is God as "Shaddai" who abundantly blesses with all manner of blessings. One commentator said, "the idea of One who is all-powerful and all-mighty is implied . . . for only an all-powerful One could be all-sufficient and all-bountiful. He is almighty because He is able to carry out His purposes and plans to their fullest and most glorious and triumphant completion. . . . So He is able to save to the uttermost. And He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think."
It's important to note here that to experience God's sufficiency as our all-sufficient El Shaddai, we must realize our own insufficiency. To experience God's fullness as He has revealed Himself through His names, we must first empty ourselves — that is, make ourselves empty vessels which El Shaddai can then fill and use.
When you are staring in the face of lack, inadequacy, shortage, and want that is the time to remember that you have a God who dwells in abundance, adequacy, plenty, sufficiency and wealth.
So in the Hebrew the phrase, Yahweh Yireh for provide means The Lord sees.
For God to see is also to foresee. As the One who possesses eternal wisdom and knowledge, He knows the end from the beginning. . . . From eternity to eternity He foresees everything. . . . Thus with God foreseeing is prevision. As the Jehovah of righteousness and holiness, and of love and redemption, having prevision of man's sin, and fall, and need, He makes provision for that need. For provision, after all, is merely a compound of two Latin words meaning "to see beforehand". And we may learn from a dictionary that "provide" is simply the verb and "prevision" the noun of seeing beforehand. Thus to God prevision is necessarily followed by provision, for He certainly will provide for that need which His foreseeing shows Him to exist. With Him prevision and provision are one and the same thing." (emphases added)
Thus, "YHWH Sees" becomes "YHWH Provides" or "YHWH Will Provide".
In Old Testament times the people of Israel were commanded to worship the Lord in his holy mountain three times a year. Exodus 23:17 notes that God commanded men to appear before the Lord for worship and to bring their sacrifices. This is described as being seen by God. To be seen or taken seriously the believer had to worship and sacrifice. In return, God would Yireh or be seen as He provided for them.
Those who did not worship and sacrifice did not expect to be seen by God.
Abraham came to the mountain willing to sacrifice everything to please God. In this instance, it was not necessary to do so, but God saw his willingness and then provided a ram in the bush.
This is the main point of this text; Abraham becomes the type of a believer who seriously desires to please God in every way, even to the extent of actually sacrificing his son. In the same context, we are shown Gods response to worship and sacrifice provision of what he needed.
The text shows God looking at the worship and sacrifice of the believer, then providing needed blessings based on that evaluation.
Because he both sees our need and supplies the response, He is seen as our Jehovah-Jireh, our provider.
When God promised Abraham a son, he believed the promise "and it was counted unto him for righteousness." "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God."
Having received this son, having realized the truth of the promise,was there not a danger that he would rest in the gift instead of in the Giver? Was there not a danger that he would lean upon Isaac, in thinking upon the future seed and future inheritance, rather than upon God Himself who had promised him the seed? Surely there was; and God knew that, and therefore He tries His servant in a way, more than anything, calculated to put him to the test as to the object on which his soul was resting. The grand inquiry put to Abraham's heart, in this marvelous deal, was, "are you still walking before the Almighty God, the quickener of the dead?"
God desired to know whether Abraham could apprehend in Him the One who was as able to raise up his sacrificed son.
In other words, God desired to prove that Abraham's faith reached forth,to resurrection, for if it stopped short of that, he never would have responded to the startling command, when the Lord told him to "Take now, thy son, thine only son Isaac whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of" (Ge 22:2).
But Abraham "staggered not." He at once responded to the call.
God had asked for Isaac, and Isaac must be given.
That word "staggered" means he wasn't astonished or deeply shocked by God's request. He didn't sway or stumble at the promise of God as a result of his obedience in Faith. His eyes rested upon "the Almighty God."
This is evident when Abraham points this journey of his to Mount Moriah, he says, "I and the lad will go yonder and worship."
Yes, it was an act of worship,he was going to lay Issac upon that altar to prove, in the sight of Heaven and hell, that no other object or thing filled his soul but the Almighty God.
Abraham never faltered throughout the story.
He saddles the ass, prepares the wood, and sets off to Mount Moriah.
As this man of Faith ascends the mountain, taking with him his "well-beloved son"! We also see how the angelic hosts watched this illustrious father from stage to stage of his wondrous journey, until at last they watched his hand stretch forth with the knife to slay his son — the son for which he had so longed, and for which he had so steadily trusted God. Right about now would be a good time for satan to shoot his fiery darts!
"If you do this , What will become of the promises of God with regard to the seed and the inheritance, if you sacrifice your only son?"
" Are you sure your not being led astray by some false revelation?"
"If it be true that God has said so and so, don't not God know that, in the day you sacrifice your son, all your hopes will be explode?"
"Furthermore, think of Sarah; what will she do if she loses Isaac, after having persuaded you to evict from your house Ishmael?"
I can imagine in my mind that through these suggestions, and many more that the enemy probably tried everything he could to distract Abraham but Abraham was beyond the area of those thoughts and reasonings. He was looking at a RESURRECTION!
Hebrews 11:17 - 19 say's "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called: ACCOUNTING THAT GOD WAS ABLE TO RAISE HIM UP, EVEN FROM THE DEAD; FROM WHENCE ALSO HE RECEIVED HIM IN A FIGURE".
Resurrection is God's mighty remedy for all the mischief and ruin that satan tries to introduce to us in our Faith walk.
When you arrive at this point in your life, you will deal with satan, the same way that Jesus did. satan cannot touch the life that has been received in resurrection, for the last exercise of his power is seen in the grave of Christ; he thought he could hold Jesus down but God proved him wrong when Jesus made the statement, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death."
Look at your neighbor and say, "Beyond Resurrection there aint a thing that the devil can do. The Bible says that "your life is hidden with Christ in God."
You not only have a God that provides but you also have a God who has a blessed hiding place for you in Jesus Christ!
Psalms 91:1 says:
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Some would think that God wasn't right for asking such a thing.
Do you know how foolish it is to doubt the infinite wisdom of God.
Psalm 147:5 says,"Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite."
The tests of life are not for an omniscient God, but they are for us so that we may come to learn who and what we really are made of.
Abraham learned that there was nothing between him and his God, not even that which he treasured most on this earth.
After this test, God used this opportunity to confirm His commitment to fulfill His promise to Abraham based on Abraham's act of obedience.
Ge 22:15 - 18
And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
Abraham believed and obeyed God. This combination of belief and obedience pleased God to the fulfillment of His covenant with Abraham.
Centuries later, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, Paul and James both cite Abraham as support for the doctrine they advance in their respective, and different, dispensational ages.
For Abraham the promises meant Mount Moriah (Ge 22:1-18), to Isaac the promises meant Gerar (Ge 26:1-6), to Jacob the promises meant Bethel (Ge 28:10-19) and Beersheba (Ge 46:1-4), for the whole nation of Israel the promises meant Mount Sinai. I don't know what your city is going to be but I do know that if your going to experience God's sufficiency you must realize your own insufficiency.
I heard Jesus say in 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul said, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."
Genesis 5:22 notes that Enoch walked with God.
Conclusion : When You Walk With GOD
Believers who walk with God may not go through the long list of the names of God. They may be too long to remember.
When our strength is failing, we may not remember to call on El-Shaddai, the almighty God..but there is a name!
When we are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, we may not remember, Jehova-Rohi, The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not
want!..but there is a name!
When we are feeling like were making this journey alone, we may not remember Emmanuel the everlasting God, but there is a name!
Because we walk with the Lord he has given us a name to call, on a first name basis.
There is no hyphen.
There is no special effort needed to remember certain names.
One name says it all. If you know God for yourself, you call on the name of Jesus.
No wonder the song writer declared, I come to the garden alone. While the dew is still on the roses. And the voice I hear ringing in mine ear, the son of God discloses. And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known
There is a name that reaches beyond the narrow confines of my loneliness and brings me comfort!
There is a name that reaches below my deepest failure and guides me to success!
There is a name that transcends my weakness and brings me strength.
Its the name of Jesus! There is none other name whereby we must be saved! Its the name of Jesus!
No wonder the song writer declared, There is a name I love to hear. I love to sing its worth. It sounds like music in mine ear, the sweetest name on earth. Oh how I love Jesus. Oh How I love Jesus. Because he first loved me.
Dr Charles C Jones
Even SO Come Lord Jesus
5/19/2019
