Will We Follow Him?

So they called Rebekah and said to her, Will you go with this man? And she said, I will go. (Genesis 24:58, Amplified Bible)

I will go. Three simple words that epitomized Rebekah’s faith in her bridegroom, a man she did not even know! She was willing to leave her home and her people, a type of those believers who are wiling to leave everything behind to follow Christ and become His bride.

And Ruth said, Urge me not to leave you or to turn back from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God. (Ruth 1:16, emphasis mine).

Ruth clung to Naomi, and professed that she would follow her while Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and returned to her people, a type of those believers who remain faithful in Christ and those who turn back to the world.

Then the Lord rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of the heavens. He overthrew, destroyed, and ended those cities, and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But [Lot’s] wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19, 24-26)

This is another type of the saved believer who does not seek first the kingdom and looks longingly back to this world. Throughout Scripture, we see people who falter at some point during their race. Esau sells his birthright for a mere cup of stew. Moses disobeys the Lord by striking the rock twice and is not allowed to enter the Promised Land. In fact, of the estimated 2.5 million Israelites who were believed to be living in the desert during that time, only two men followed God and are able to enter the land: Joshua and Caleb. The others who did not harken to God’s voice are not even allowed to see it (Numbers 14:22-30).

Paul mentions a thorn in his flesh that the Lord refuses to remove despite his pleas on three occasions. I can imagine him crying out:  Lord, give me the strength, endurance, and faith to follow You in all ways and to seek first Your kingdom no matter what the cost.

Satan’s plan remains the same as it was in the garden, which is to disqualify man from inheriting the kingdom. He attacks each of us in different ways. Learn more and be encouraged by John Herbert’s excellent sermons about the three enemies that can disqualify us from the race: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Quoteworthy: Longing for God

Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all. 

If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. Now as always God discovers Himself to "babes" and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.

When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the "and" lies our great woe. If we omit the "and" we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.

We need not fear that in seeking God only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts. The opposite is true. We can well afford to make God our All, to concentrate, to sacrifice the many for the One. 

 Excerpt from The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. Published in 1948.

Salvation of the Spirit

Have you ever been haunted by a verse in Scripture?  What I mean by that is when you come across a verse that doesn’t seem to make any sense, and you repeatedly ask others to explain it, but their answers baffle you even more.  You pray, search, and hope that one day God will finally reveal the meaning to you.

For me, one of those verses was Philippians 2:12:

¹²Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

How could I work out my salvation?  Wasn't it a free gift?  As I studied Scripture, I came across another passage that challenged everything that I had been told about salvation.   

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,⁴To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: ⁷That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: ⁸Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: ⁹Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9) 

What was this salvation ready to be revealed in the last time?  And if I was already saved, how could salvation of my soul be the end result of my faith?

The reason that no one could explain these verses to my satisfaction was because they were associating them with salvation of the spirit, the free gift that we receive by God’s grace alone when we believe in Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit, which marks the beginning of our faith.

⁸For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  ⁹Not of works, lest any man should boast.  (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Let me clear: when we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and our Savior, we are assured of eternal life, something that we can never lose or have taken away from us.  

¹⁶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  (John 3:16)

Spirit salvation, however, is just the beginning of an ongoing process and it holds the promise of so much more!  To fully grasp this, we need to first understand the nature of man in relation to the nature of God.  

Genesis 1:26 states: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. 

The Hebrew word for God that is used here is 'elohiym, and it is a plural noun.  Right from the beginning of Scripture we see that God is a trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  

Scripture also says that man was made in God’s image and after His likeness.  1 Thessalonians 5:23 tells us that man’s nature is also three-fold: spirit, soul, and body:

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Next time: Salvation of the soul.

A Special Promise

In John 14:2-3, Jesus tells the disciples:

²In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  

Isn’t it wonderful to know that Jesus has promised to return for those who have placed their faith and trust in Him as their Savior?  It is our blessed hope, the one thing we can be sure of.  Yet we hardly ever hear about it.

The religious leaders of Jesus' day knew the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) by heart and were well aware of the signs of the coming Messiah.  But they either missed it completely or outright rejected Him.  

Today we have the benefit of having the full counsel of God's Word.  Every book in the Bible points to the return of Jesus to establish His kingdom here on earth as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.  But even many believers are missing that too. 

I should know.  I was one of them.  

When I became a Christian I read every book my "pastor" strongly suggested (most were mainstream Christian books).  Unfortunately, he never strongly suggested that I read the Bible from cover to cover.  But the fault was mine for relying on man's word rather than God's Word.   

Romans 10:17 tells us: So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 

But please don't take my word for it.  Read His.