TRUSTING GOD - Contd.
In Part 3 through Abraham's life, we learnt that service which is a result of God working through us will remain for eternity. Everything else will be burnt up. Now, let us learn about...
No confidence in the flesh
In Gen.17:11, we learn that after thirteen years of waiting, when God appeared to Abraham again, He gave him a covenant of circumcision. Circumcision involved a cutting-off and a casting-off of human flesh. It symbolized a casting off of all confidence in self - as Paul explains in Philippians 3:3: "We are the circumcision... who have no confidence in the flesh."
We should notice that, in the very same year that Abraham obeyed God and circumcised himself, Isaac was conceived (Gen. 17:1 and 21:5). There is a lesson for all of 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 realize that it is impossible for us in ourselves to serve God and please Him (Rom. 8:8), and when we trust God to work through us, then He takes us up and does an 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 (1 Cor. 1:29). God is working to the point where finally Christ will have the 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 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.
Jessie Penn-Lewis was a woman whose writings have helped many people understand the way of the cross. About ten years after her conversion, when seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit, she tells of how she got a terrible revelation. She saw a hand holding up a bundle of filthy rags and a gentle voice saying, "This is the outcome of all your past service for God". She protested that she had been consecrated to the Lord for years. But the Lord told her that all her service had been merely consecrated SELF - the outcome of her own energy and her own plans. And then she heard one word spoken to her, "Crucified". She had not asked to be crucified, she thought, but to be filled. But she rested on that one word and came to know Jesus as the Risen Lord!!
Self must be crucified, before there can be any 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 say "No" in eternity.
Through this lesson let us all learn to crucify our self and everything that gives eminence to our self. Let us seek to glorify God in everything that we do. Let us constantly pray that God Almighty might guide us in our difficult times and let His wisdom guide us. Also to help us not to take credit for everything that happens in our life, but give credit to God for the blessing in our life.
I would like to take this time to thank Zac Poonen for his wonderful book "Beauty for Ashes". The above has been taken from the same book.
I would like all my Brothers and Sisters in Christ to pray for me so that the Lord Almighty guide me, not in presenting the words from other people but also to open my mind His Holy Words and understand them and first accept those words in my life and then present those words to you all.
Your humble Brother in Christ
Jobin George
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