Good evening. Can everyone hear me all right? Okay.
If, as the meeting goes on, anyone needs any translation, John Smith will be in the back of the room. He’s fluent in Southern.
I already know many of y’all. Some of you I don’t know, and some of you I just know a little bit—some very well. I’m very, very glad that I could be here this year and be with you. It’s just been pleasant for me.
You know, just this evening I was sitting in the back of the room and thinking how close we are as a people, even though we’re from different nations and different places. Even to look around the room and see people from different heritage and different nationality—Chinese and Caucasian and Black—and even got somebody here from Alabama. I mean, we got all sorts of things here, and it’s really a blessing and a testimony.
The Lord’s people come together and love each other: one body, right? One Spirit, all seeking the Lord together. It’s really a pleasant thing to my soul.
How many people got this thing in the mail some weeks or months ago, this little deal that says, “Follow Me”? When I got this thing, and as I thought about it, I thought this little picture was very significant. The more I thought about it, the more thoughts I had about this time together, and I really liked the simple picture of this.
To me, it looks like a father and his child. I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, but in my movie I guess it’s a boy. It’s a father and his child holding hands, walking along together. There are several things that came to my mind in the light of our Scripture:
If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.
Some of the things that come to mind as you look at this picture of a father leading his child are that this child is safe. You don’t have any sense in this picture that this child is uncomfortable, feels threatened, or feels in danger. There’s no worry about whether or not his father is taking him to a bad place.
In other words, he’s comfortable with his father, and his father is actually touching him, leading him by the hand. You have a sense of protection, a sense of peace. It really seems to be a pleasant thing, a close relationship—holding hands, trusting. There’s safety involved.
Also, you notice that this child is not being dragged along. He’s willingly going along because he trusts his father and he knows that his father loves him.
Now, Jim covered this morning some of the very same things that were on my heart, so I won’t have to go into them very much. I’ll just touch on them.
Primarily, the first thing I wanted to lay down as a foundation is that this matter of following the Lord begins with having that realization—really having the knowledge—that you are loved, that you personally are chosen and loved by the Lord.
You aren’t saved as part of a group. The Lord didn’t save millions and millions of people and you just happen to be one of them. He saved you personally. He knows how many hairs are on your head, knows all about you personally, knows your name, knows your thoughts. He died for you personally and loves you personally.
I think we all know that in theory, but I tell you, it’s a life-changing deal when you really begin to understand that the Lord loves you personally and cares about you personally. It changes this matter of following Him from something that we have to do to something that we get to do.
We’re going to talk a little bit about what self-denial is and what exactly taking up the cross is. Those were our questions this morning in the group that I was in. We’ll be thinking about those throughout tonight, and we’ll go into them a little more specifically next time.
What is self-denial? What is taking up the cross? We’re going to deal with those things a little bit later.
Still, just as a foundational issue, I thought that this matter of following the Lord begins with the knowledge that you have the Holy Spirit. You have to know that you have the Holy Spirit so that you can hear His voice.
Knowing that you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you is more important than you think it is. Because when you believe in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, you receive the Holy Spirit. He came into your spirit, took up residence, and started living inside of you. In fact, that’s what makes you a Christian.
Nobody is a Christian because they believe the right doctrine. You’re a Christian because the Holy Spirit is living inside of your spirit. That’s what makes you a Christian. If the Holy Spirit is not living inside of you, then you’re not a Christian.
But I think we’re a room full of Christians, a room full of people who have the Holy Spirit. Yet, just like in the Bible, there were people who had some relation with the Holy Spirit, but they did not know there was a Holy Spirit. I think that probably some of us in this room are the same way. We know in theory; we’ve heard about it. We don’t really know in a practical way that we have the Holy Spirit.
It is really necessary that we know that we have the Holy Spirit, because without that it is impossible to follow the Lord.
I’d like you to turn to Deuteronomy. Most of the Scriptures that I have tonight are Old Testament Scriptures—just the ones that the Lord put on my heart. It is Deuteronomy 30. We’re going to read verses 15 through 20.
I’d like everybody, if you have a Bible, to look at that. I’ll just read from the New American Standard, because I’d like to use the one that Moses used.
Deuteronomy 30, starting with verse 15:
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity,
in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways,
and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments,
that you may live and multiply,
and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.But if your heart turns away and you will not obey,
but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them,
I declare to you today that you shall surely perish.
You shall not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it.I call heaven and earth to witness against you today,
that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.
So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,
by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him;
for this is your life and the length of your days,
that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers,
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.
Pay attention to verse 20: “By loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him.”
It’s interesting that this was laid on the Lord’s people. I think that all the Lord’s people found out along the way, as everyone has found out along the way, that you cannot keep all of the Lord’s law and requirements—all the statutes and all the things that they had to keep. No one could keep them. Everyone failed. No one can do it all.
I think one of the things that we have to find out, and that many of us have already found out, is that we’re weak and limited, and that apart from Him we really can’t do anything.
But loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, and holding fast to Him—you can do that, because those things are a matter of heart. The Holy Spirit has enabled us to do those things. We can actually bless the Lord.
There were faithful men and women in Old Testament days. They all had failure in their lives, and almost every single one of them in the Bible has some failure reported for our benefit. Yet they were pleasing to the Lord, even though they failed. In some way, they were pleasing. The end of their life, the story, and the legacy that they left was that they were pleasing to the Lord and bore fruit for the Lord because they had a heart for the Lord.
So this biggest issue in following the Lord—lest anyone be discouraged and think it is too hard or too complicated—is not complicated. The biggest issue in following the Lord is a matter of heart. If you give your heart to the Lord, you’ll be able to follow Him. You will follow Him.
That’s why the very first thing here is simply a matter of loving the Lord.
I’m going to talk about that probably quite a bit tonight, because that is on my heart: this matter of loving the Lord. There is no following without loving. There simply is no really coming alongside of the Lord without loving Him.
And that is something that we can do. Sometimes we think, “Well, it is something that we ought to do.” But mostly it is something that we can do.
If we feel like we’re limited in that ability to love the Lord, and we don’t have love for Him, I’d like to make two suggestions that I think you’ll really find helpful.
First, start when you wake up in the morning. I like to wake up in the morning and say, “Lord, I love You. I love You, Lord. Thank You for a new day. Lord, thank You for loving me. I love You.”
I like to tell the Lord out loud that I love Him. I think if you do that, if you’ll start saying out loud, “Lord, I love You,” you’ll find out that something will change inside of you. You’ll find out that it is pleasing to the Lord and to you, and it will actually do something in you.
The other thing is probably more obvious than that, and that is simply to ask the Lord, “Lord, increase my love for You. Lord, give me a heart that loves You. Lord, I do love You. I want to love You more. Give me more love for You.”
We can do that, and it is a key. It is a key to everything. We have to know that we have the Holy Spirit so that we can hear His voice. We need to love the Lord—for His sake and for our sake.
I want to return to this little picture again and say a couple of things about it. In order to follow someone, you pretty much have to be able to see them. In other words, if you were going to follow someone without literally holding their hand, you’d have to be able to see them. You’d have to be able to see where they’re going.
It would really help if you understood the way that they thought. If you understand the way somebody thinks, you can sort of know what their next move is going to be. It is a lot easier to follow somebody when you know their thoughts.
If you know a person deeply, understand them, and know their ways, then the door is really open for you to follow them. To follow somebody, you’ve got to keep them in sight, right? You have to be close enough to them to see them, know where they are, and be able to locate them. It really helps if you know where they’re going.
When I think about all these things with regard to following, following is really similar in my mind to abiding—being close enough to know where the person is going, to know where they are, and to begin to understand what they’re doing.
Look over at this familiar Psalm 91. Everybody knows this. Psalm 91, just verse 1:
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
Some translations say, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” Actually, I like that—the secret place. I want to talk about that a minute.
Also, Isaiah 45:3:
I will give you the treasures of darkness
and hidden wealth of secret places,
in order that you may know that it is I,
the Lord, the God of Israel,
Who calls you by your name.
“I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places.”
There is something about intimate relationship. That is what it means by “secret place”: a secret relationship, a private, personal, kind of hidden relationship between you and the Lord. That kind of relationship leads to treasure.
By the way, Psalm 91 that we read was the Psalm of Moses. You all know that Israel only saw the things that the Lord did, but Moses knew His ways. Moses knew what it was to abide, to dwell, to live with the Lord, and to have personal relationship with Him.
Really, that is what all of us are called to: personal relationship with the Lord. That is really what is on my heart.
If this were some kind of church place that put a sign out on the front lawn about what the message was going to be on Sunday morning, the message for me would say, “Personal Relationship.”
That is really what is on my heart for tonight. This matter of following the Lord has everything to do with personal relationship.
By the way, this is what the Lord saved you for. I hope everybody here understands that the Lord did not save you so that you would not go to hell. Not going to hell is the benefit of salvation; it is not the purpose. The purpose of salvation is because the Lord wanted to have personal, two-way fellowship and relationship with you.
That is why He saved you: because He loves you and wanted to actually have fellowship, communion, relationship with you personally. How about that? That is the reason for salvation. That is the reason you have been saved.
So this whole matter of personal relationship—everything hinges on it. There is no escape from this question: Do you have personal relationship, abiding, dwelling, personal secret relationship with the Lord Jesus?
There is no substitute for it. Of course, it is a question that you have to answer personally, and nobody else can answer it but you.
When I think about this matter of personal relationship with the Lord, and we know the Lord is preparing a bride for Himself, I think about my own relationship with my wife.
Now, I have friends in this room, and I have close friends. Everybody that is a friend of mine is entitled to know something about me. The closer you are to me, the more entitled you are to know more about me. In other words, the more trusting our relationship is and the more that has been built between us, the more I let you in and the more you let me in.
But, of course, my most intimate secrets—there is a certain place in my life and certain things that are off limits even to my closest friends. There are certain issues in my life that are only available and open to my closest human relationship: my own bride, my own wife.
With her, she knows everything about me—everything. And she ought to. She has a right to know everything because the Lord has made us one. It is that close of a relationship.
When Randy and I live together—and this may sound a little silly, but you understand, it is making a point—Randy and I don’t just share a house together. It is not a relationship of convenience. I certainly didn’t marry her so she would cook. I do all the cooking and the shopping. I like to, and she does other things.
I married her because I loved her. I knew she was the Lord’s choice for me, and I wanted to share my life with her. I wanted to share all my joy with her. When you share your joy with someone else, it is better. When you share your sorrow with someone else, it is more pleasant; it is more palatable.
By the way, we were made—you were made and I was made—in God’s image. Part of that image that the Lord made you in was the need to receive and express love.
The Lord made you a vessel that has a need to express affection and love. He also made you a vessel that needs to receive affection and receive love.
The reason that the Lord created us this way is because, in some way beyond our understanding, this is the way He is. The Lord—not in a weakness, but to put it in human terms—there is something in the Lord’s personality that desires to receive love and affection.
That is why He made us in His image this way: so that He could receive love and affection and share His life with us. Not His divinity—that is only His—but He wants to share His life with us.
When we begin to understand this, see this, and walk in it, it changes everything. It changes our understanding of the Scripture and changes our daily, practical relationship with Him. It certainly changes everything about this matter of following Him.
When we understand that He loves us, that He desires to actually have personal, deep fellowship with you, and to reveal secrets to you, everything changes.
The Lord Jesus says that those who love Him and keep His commandments will be loved by His Father, and They will make Their abode with him. They will abide with him. They will dwell with him.
The more that we love the Lord, the more He desires to reveal secret things to us. To put it in human terms, He has a need to do that. He has a need to reveal Himself to His people and to reveal Himself to individuals. But He only does it, past a certain point, to those who love Him.
It is a wonderful thing in this life to have people that you can share things with—personal things, needs, burdens, and joys. You would be a fool if you walked up to somebody in the airport and started sharing all your intimate secrets with them.
“Oh, hi, I don’t know you, but I just have a few things I’d like to tell you about myself. I’d like you to have my Social Security number for a card.” That would not be wise.
But those who love you, and those whom you love, and those to whom the Lord gives an intimate relationship, have more right. The Lord Himself desires to share intimate secrets with those who love Him: the treasure of hidden places.
That is what He is speaking of in Isaiah. It is actually a practical relationship that we are all invited to have, can have, and ought to have.
I thought of something this morning when Jim was sharing. Jim talked about the difficulty of expressing affection and of affectionate relationship. I couldn’t help but think of Fiddler on the Roof. Is everybody familiar with that movie? It is one of my wife’s favorite stories.
You all know there is a certain point in the story where Tevye, the old guy in the story, has been witnessing his own kids being in love and romance and all this. All of a sudden, he gets the idea and says to his wife, “Do you love me?”
She sings this deal back to him—it is a musical—about how, for however many years, she has washed his clothes, cleaned his nose, or whatever, however it goes; done all this stuff for him. And he says at the end, “But do you love me?” I think they kind of do the same thing back and forth. It really makes a lot of sense.
The Lord saved us because He loves us, and He wants to be loved back. You are the same way. He made us the same way. We need to be loved. The Lord wants to be loved by us.
Sometimes we get it in our psyche that He is some distant, all-powerful, robotic something. But He is Spirit. He is the God of love. He is love. He desires to be loved, and it is not selfish or self-serving.
I think probably many of us—maybe all of us in this room—understand to some point that when you love the Lord, it becomes a two-way street. There is something for Him and something for you.
In fact, it is very similar to giving a testimony. When you share what God has done for you, it does something for everyone who hears it, and it does something for you. Something metaphysical happens when you share a real testimony. It does something for the people who hear it, and it does something for you.
When we are loving the Lord and having a heart for Him, it does something for Him and something for us too.
Sometimes I think some of us have a slight misunderstanding, or a misappropriation of philosophy, about loving the Lord. We think that the Lord primarily wants us to do something for Him. I believe that the Lord primarily wants us to do something to Him, not for Him—and that “to Him” is to love Him.
My wife likes it when I do things for her, but that isn’t why she married me. I like it when she does things for me. Boy, I’m going to really be happy if I get home from this trip and the house is clean. She knows how I like things when I get home, and if I can get home and not have to do anything and be able to rest, she will have done something for me.
But the main deal is that I want her to love me, be my friend, and express affection to me. That is what I want. I could hire a maid. I want her to love me.
I like to hear at least once a day from my wife that she loves me, and I especially like it when I haven’t done anything to deserve it. I’m telling you, it is wonderful and pleasant to my soul when my bride just says, “Sonny, I love you. I love you.”
When I do it to her, that is neat. I think the reason it is neat is because when we do that to the Lord—not because He has done something for us, but because we love Him and express it to Him—it is the same thing. It is a blessing to Him. It is a sweetness to Him.
Again, what we are really talking about is following the Lord, and that is really what the deal is.
I want to take just a few minutes. We are talking about the blessings the Lord gives us, the blessing of intimacy, and really having intimate relationship with the Lord.
By the way, those of you who know me already know this: I have a lot of relationship with young people, but I don’t have a teenager’s message. You have probably already figured that out. I would give the same exact message tonight that I would give if I were at home in Memphis or speaking to adults. You are adults, many of you. It is just one message: loving the Lord, following the Lord, all the same stuff.
It is not a watered-down message because you are young. This is real stuff that the Lord has put on our hearts.
What I want to do is continue in this theme of our need for intimate relationship with the Lord. I would like to paraphrase a little bit of the story of Rebekah. I know some of you have heard me do that before, and I am just going to touch on a few things from the story of Rebekah—how she was prepared to be a wife and how the Lord got her.
The first thing to understand about Isaac and Rebekah, and about Rebekah being prepared, is that she was made in God’s image just like you. The Lord made her, and made you, in His image to love Him, to need love, and to be able to express affection.
The second thing is that she was appointed for a purpose. Again, she is no different than any of us. We have been appointed for a purpose too. You have been appointed for a purpose, and we need to know that.
I hope this week, by the time it is over, that we will all understand that there is nobody here who has not been appointed for a divine purpose—more than we would even think.
I really wonder if this little filter is keeping the bad stuff out of the water. I think it is, you know.
Another thing about Rebekah that stands out, if you are familiar with the story, is that Rebekah was prepared in a secret place. In other words, how Rebekah became prepared to be the bride of Isaac, the Bible does not tell us in a clear, scientific, clinical, intellectual way. It becomes obvious that she is already prepared.
I think probably everybody in this room is somewhat familiar with the story, so I am not going to go over all the details. I am just going to paraphrase a few things.
It is very significant, as we were talking about the Holy Spirit, that the master of Abraham’s house, the oldest servant in his house, was sent out.
Let me ask a rhetorical question. Who is the servant of the Lord’s house? In fact, it won’t be rhetorical. Somebody can answer. Who is this fellow in this story? Who is he a picture and type of? I know some people in this room know the answer. This is not a trick question.
He is a picture of the Holy Spirit. Abraham’s servant, who went out seeking a bride for Isaac, is a picture of the Holy Spirit. He goes to a place seeking a bride for his master. Get it? The Holy Spirit is seeking a bride for the Master even now. A bride has been, and is being, prepared right now as well.
When he came to a certain place, he came to the well. Of course, you all know Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. It is a picture not of physical strength, but of blessing and supernatural strength.
The Bible says she was a beautiful woman. She was beautiful. I don’t think she was a big, muscular gal. Well, maybe muscles were in then, but I don’t think so. I don’t think Samson was a big muscular guy either. People said, “Where does his strength come from?”
I think Rebekah was beautiful. She came out with her jar on her shoulder. It is a picture of having been prepared; it is a picture of spiritual strength.
The servant asked her if he could have a drink, and she immediately said, “Not only will I get you a drink, I’ll water your camels as well.” I think camels drink a lot of water. I mean, this is a big project. She had already been prepared to do it. She was willing to do it.
When he inquired whether there might be a place to stay, she did not say, “We’re sort of crowded at our house. It is not very big.” She did not start thinking, “Ten camels? Man, I don’t want this guy coming to my house bringing ten camels. A lot more work for me.”
She said, “We have plenty of room for you—plenty of room and plenty of straw. Come on.”
He knew that he had found the right one. He started putting gifts on her—put a ring in her nose. That was obviously a big deal back then, really hot stuff, had a gold ring, you know. He put a ring in her nose, bracelets on her, and got out gifts.
They go back to her house. The relatives see all these gifts. Everybody is excited, right?
By the way, this is the first thing that happens when the Holy Spirit gives gifts—and He does give gifts. He loves to give gifts. He loves to meet us. We just respond a little bit, and He responds a lot.
He gave gifts to Rebekah and gifts to her family. Of course, the initial response to the kindness of the Holy Spirit usually is that we make a vow and a testimony—sort of our emotional response.
Usually, when the Lord begins to reward us and give us some gift—and I am not necessarily talking about tangible, outward gifts, though He gives those to His people—but He also gives spiritual gifts. That is the real issue. He blesses us inwardly.
A lot of times our initial reaction to that is that we make a vow: “Lord, I’ll follow You anywhere. I’ll do whatever You want me to do, Lord.”
I’m embarrassed to tell you that I went to summer camp every summer for ten years growing up. The last night of camp every year, I threw my pinecone in the fire and made a vow to the Lord about how I was going to be a different person.
Of course, this camp was always the last week right before school started. For the first week or few days of school, I was trying to be the new Sonny. But after about two weeks, I’m a gangster, you know. It just never worked.
But that is our initial response a lot of times. We make a vow: “Lord, I will follow You. I’ll do…” That is not an evil thing. It is a natural response to the kindness of the Lord.
Rebekah’s vow is real. But her relatives, when they first got the gifts, said, “Yeah, no problems. The girl can go with you and marry your man. Boy, this looks like a marriage made in heaven. We are all for it. Great deal.”
But then they slept on it. The next morning, the servant came and said, “All right, our bus is leaving in an hour. Let’s get the girl and go.” The relatives said, “Oh, how about we wait ten days?”
The servant said, “No. I have to know now. My master is waiting. I have to know now.”
I’m glad I see some people reading their Bible to make sure I’m telling the truth. I want to encourage everybody to read this story. Think about these things. Do not just take it from me, but read it for yourself and ask the Lord to reveal to you what these things mean and what He wants to say to you.
Then her relatives tried to negotiate with the servant. They said, “Ah, let’s keep her awhile.” The servant said, “No, my master is waiting. We have to go now.”
I tell you, sometimes, brothers and sisters, the Lord will bless us and we all make a vow. Even our relatives make a vow: “We’re all going to follow the Lord.”
Only when the Holy Spirit comes and says, “I want you to do something that is maybe a little different than what you would have thought of, or even what your parents would have thought of,” there starts to be a negotiation.
Sometimes we try to negotiate with the Lord. “Lord, we love You. We’re just really glad that we want to be Your servant. We want to serve You, but let’s not get carried away here. We don’t want to move to India or anything.”
I said that on purpose. We have some brethren from Memphis who have it on their heart to go to India and serve the Lord in India.
I don’t want to get off the subject, but I happen to know that a person who changed my life, whom I met by divine accident thirty-five years ago walking through a door, was a Caucasian fellow who lived his whole life in India. His father had been a Christian and Missionary Alliance missionary in India for forty-five years.
The only time this man did not live in India was when he came to Canada to go to, I believe it was, Taylor University for four years. His roommate in college was a man named George Burr. Together they established an organization called Operation Mobilization.
I met him right before I got married, and by divine accident we literally bumped into each other. I was going to a Bible college. He happened to be in the area, came to visit the Bible college just for something to do, and we walked into each other. We wound up having a cup of tea together and talking.
I got married, and my wife and I spent our summer—our honeymoon—in Europe, witnessing with the most militant evangelical organization on the face of the earth. I mean, it was a real experience.
He told me one time that many people, even when they go to India for mission work, always go to certain cities where it is a little cooler and where there is a lot more nice stuff. You cannot find the missionary in the center of Bihar State, where it is 110 degrees every day and where people die at night right on the roadside, where it is a difficult place to live.
So I have always had that lodged in my mind: that the ultimate thing the Lord might ask me to do someday would be to move to India, into a difficult place.
But sometimes the Lord does lay on our hearts to go and do something. We have already made a vow to Him that we will follow Him anywhere. But then when He asks us to do something, sometimes we ourselves find out that we are not as committed as we thought we were.
Here is an interesting thing—pay attention to this. Sometimes your loved ones try to negotiate the deal for you.
Ultimately, what happened in this story is that finally the servant said, “We have to make a decision.” The relatives said, “Okay, let’s ask Rebekah. Here she comes. Let’s ask her.”
They said, “Will you go? Will you go with this man?”
She was leaving her home. She was going away to a place she had never been before, and she was going to marry somebody she had never met. She was leaving her family. She might be leaving her culture. She was leaving everything that was known and going to a place that was unknown.
She said, “I will go.” And she went.
As you know, she met Isaac, and they loved each other immediately. The last Scripture in the matter says that Isaac was comforted after the death of his mother.
The Lord had prepared them for each other. The Lord had prepared Rebekah to be the bride for Isaac.
This is not basically a story about a human marriage, although there was a human marriage involved—a fruitful human marriage. This is not basically a story about human marriage. It is primarily a story about a young girl saying yes to the Holy Spirit.
The real issue in following the Lord is saying yes to the Holy Spirit.
Right now, and in the coming days and coming weeks, the Lord will be asking you questions and touching your heart about certain matters. He surely will.
It will become a very personal thing. In some cases, it will be a secret thing that nobody else will know about. The Lord will ask for something that no one knows about. It is just between you and Him.
The Lord may ask for something that is not bad. That is really difficult: when the Lord asks for something that is not an evil thing or a bad thing, but He has you give Him something in your life. He says, “Give this to Me.”
By the way, the Holy Spirit is like a dove. He is gentle, like a dove is gentle. He does not scream and demand. He asks quietly, “Give Me this.” That still, small voice asks for something, and it really becomes a test.
Do we trust Him? Do we really trust Him?
Sometimes the problem with a lot of us in our preparation process is that we are what I call Christian atheists. We trust the Lord up to a point, especially when He is giving gifts and blessing. We really trust Him then. But when He asks for something, it is difficult.
Then we start maybe not believing, not trusting. You know what it really is? Sometimes we doubt: Does He really have my best interest at heart? Does He really love me? Does He really care about me? Is He trying to trick me, or does He really care about me? Does He really know what is best for me?
This is a big deal. Do we really trust that He knows what is best? Are we going to trust Him or lean to our own understanding?
I think that for many of us, if the Lord tarries, in seasons and years to come—and I don’t know how much time is left for any of us as individuals or even for life as we know it. I don’t know. No one can know unless the Holy Spirit reveals it to him personally.
But I believe that in the seasons to come, the Lord is going to put this question into your life:
Do you love Me more than anything else?
I also thought of this simple matter. It becomes so practical:
Anyone who loves mother or father, brother or sister, wife or his own life more than Me cannot be My disciple.
Rebekah did not rebel against her relatives. She did not say, “Fooey on your wishes. I’m not going to do what you want me to do.” That was not her heart at all, so I do not want anybody to misunderstand that.
Her heart was simply to say yes to the Holy Spirit in what He asked. It was a matter of faith and a matter of trust, and it bore fruit.
I guess I’m not much on challenges, but if I had a challenge, it would be to ask us to search, to ask the Lord to search us, and say, “Lord, do You have first place in every room in my heart?”
Rebekah let the man of God and the camels into her house. She said, “Come on in.”
So the issue for us is: Are we really inviting the Lord in? Are we really inviting the Holy Spirit into every room, every secret place? Or is there something off limits?
Probably, in many of us, there is some area of our life that we are holding back from the Lord. It is not because we are evil or bad. Nobody needs to beat himself up over this. You know what it really is? It is because we have not understood how much He loves us and how much good intention He has for us.
So my challenge would be: Don’t lean to your own understanding, but trust Him because He is trustworthy. Entrust yourself to Him in everything that He is asking. Don’t lean to your own understanding. Gain His understanding, because He is faithful and good.
I have a friend who has gone to be with the Lord, who demonstrated to me for many years—he was a close friend—that in his practical, personal life, he was willing to trust the Lord with everything.
He got sick one day. The day that he found out that he had a terminal disease, he sat down with me and said, “Sonny, no one—excuse me—no one will ever follow the Lord and regret it.”
“No one will go into the presence of the Lord and wish they were back with their loved ones.” He knew that.
He said, “This is much harder for you than it is for me. No one will regret going into the presence of the Lord. No one will regret following Him and giving Him everything.”
I know it is true.
We ask the Lord to reveal that to you this week, even tonight before you go to bed. In the morning, remember to wake up, if you can, and tell the Lord, “Lord, I love You. I love You. I trust You. I want to love You more.”
Praise His name.
Lord, I do thank You for Your lovingkindness to us, all Your blessings to us. Lord, I do ask You to just cover the weakness of Your servant. Cause this word to settle into our hearts.
Lord, thank You for speaking to us, for protecting the time, for giving us this time and giving us one another. Lord, we do love You. We do want to love You more. Lord, we know that You love us, that You care for us.
Lord, would You give it to many in this room to begin to follow You in a new way, in a deeper way, in a more real way?
Lord, even as we go our way this evening, will You minister to us and teach us how to minister to You, serve You, bless You, and have affection for You, Lord, even in the secret place.
Lord, we do pray all these things with much, much thanksgiving in our hearts, Lord, in Your precious name. Amen.