This Week With Jesus

 

"Thy will be done". Saying this is easy but doing it is as hard as climbing Mt. Everest.  A sixteenth-century doctor, Thomas Fuller, once said, "Beware of no man more than thyself." So true. Yesterday we talked about how we try and force our will on God and our inherent rebellion. Isaiah 48:4 says -  “Because I know that you are obstinate, And your neck is an iron sinew, And your forehead bronze..." Our rebellious self-will is well known  to God as well and there are numerous warnings in the Bible. Overcoming self-will, to be able to do Gods will takes tremendous courage and strength. Where do we get this courage? Simple: ASK God. He has already given all we need to know and remember in His word. Dwell in it. Ask, Seek, Knock and keep knocking till you find the answer. But where is the door? It's the Bible and your prayer is your knock. Keep reading, keep praying.

By nature, men and human have an undeniable religious impulse, but they also have an undeniable rebellion against God. What men want most is not the elimination of religion but want their own version of "religion". They say they want the kingdom, but they don’t want God in it. If God wants to enter our kingdom, He better show some proof, and this is frightening, especially the emphasis on signs and wonders among some Christians is frightening. Yet we look for signs, not remembering that when Moses and Aaron showed miraculous signs, so did the Egyptian magicians as did the cohort of Anti-Christ. Why then do we rebel and ask for proof when our very lives are proof? God created us and invited us into His Heavenly Kingdom, yet we want to have our own kingdom, where we are the kings and queens and our wishes and desires reign paramount. My way or the Highway Lord! And, if God wants to live in our kingdom, He better show some signs and miracles! Give me what I want.  This rebellion

Which is the bigger wonder? Gods' faithfulness or our unbelief?  He keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt him. We are as continually vexed with anxieties, molested with suspicions, and disturbed with fears, as if our God were the mirage of the desert. Yet as we read Isiaah we see He says - Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. — Isaiah 49:16 . “I have graven thee.” It does not say, “your name.” The name is there, but that is not all: our person, our image, our case, our circumstances, our sins, our temptations, our weaknesses, our wants, our works; He has graven us, everything about us, all that concerns us. With this understanding will we ever say again that our God has forsaken us or forgotten us, when he has "graven" us upon his own palms?