Let us look to the Lord again.
Thank You, our Father, that we do not have to call out to the far heavens for You to come down and be here with us, nor do we have somehow to grasp hold of You at a great distance and try to hold on to You. You have promised us that You would come, and You do dwell in us and among us.
And so we look to Christ to be our life this morning, to use Your Word to encourage our hearts, and that we might go away with the sense that You have been glorified and delighted with our dwelling in Your Word this morning. Amen.
I would like to begin by reading a couple of verses in Genesis, chapter 5, verse 22:
Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah.
Then verse 24:
Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him.
Genesis 6:9:
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
Then we will turn to Genesis 17:1. For the sake of brevity, I am going to refer to him as Abraham throughout. I realize that his name at this point is Abram, but I will call him Abraham all the way through this message, except when I read from the Scriptures.
Genesis 17:1:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be thou perfect.
Then, in Genesis 18:19, the Lord is speaking to Abraham:
For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice.
So we have three men at the beginning of the Scriptures: Enoch, the seventh generation after Adam; Noah, three generations after Enoch; and Abraham, ten generations after Noah. Of all of them, it says that they walked with God.
In Abraham’s case, when we combine the two verses, we find that he walked in the way of the Lord. That is what I want us to look at this morning: a few occasions in Abraham’s life that constituted his walking in the way of the Lord.
As for all of us, it was a day-to-day, continuous walk with the Lord throughout his life, from the day that he was called by the Lord.
From these three lives, you get the idea that God’s desire for mankind was to find a man who would walk with Him. He did find that in these three men.
Just as an aside, it is very interesting to look at the genealogy from Noah to Abraham. When you look at the years, it seems as if Noah died just two years before Abram was born. Then his son Shem actually lived about 125 or 130 years during Abraham’s lifespan. So Shem was there. Eber, one of the ancestors, actually outlived Abraham.
They were on the earth, walking on the earth. We are not given any insight into whether Abraham had any relationship with them or spoke with them, but it is an interesting thought.
The Lord raises up these men to walk with Him, men who would represent His interests and His testimony in the world.
So it is with us. The Lord is looking for an individual man, an individual woman—I am speaking to individuals now—who would walk with Him, who would go through the pains of walking down that hard path, contrary to the world and contrary to all the things that we see around us.
Finally, the Lord’s real dealing with His people takes us from the individual, as individuals, and brings us into the corporate. There is a corporate man that God is after: one man in Christ, serving God’s purpose to His end.
We will look at that and apply it to our lives in the next few minutes.
Let us look at some lessons in Abraham’s life. There are three that I want to touch on this morning:
In all of these, I want to apply them to our own lives, both individually and corporately. When I say corporately, I do not mean merely this group. I mean the new man that God has on the earth throughout the earth.
To see the first revelation Abraham had, we have to turn to Acts 7 and look at what Stephen said, full of the Holy Spirit, just before he was martyred. Acts 7:2 gives us real insight into when Abraham heard from the Lord.
Acts 7:2:
Brethren and fathers, hear ye. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.
Here we have Abraham living in Mesopotamia, a land of many gods. We can look at Laban and Rachel, Jacob’s wife. They had household gods—teraphim—little statues or idols that supposedly had magical powers to enhance the life of the owner.
You wonder if Abraham was not also a practitioner of idolatry before the call of God upon his life. It would not surprise me if he had been an idol worshiper.
Here, probably at the age of sixty, the Lord comes and reveals Himself to Abraham. Out of nowhere, God comes to this man in Mesopotamia and reveals Himself to his heart.
According to Stephen, the God of glory appeared to Abraham. Abraham later called Him the God of heaven who appeared to him. The God of glory appeared to him in Mesopotamia, spoke to him, promised him, and blessed him right there.
It was a marvelous thing that the Lord did to initially bring Abraham into a relationship with Himself. He opened that door, and Abraham could begin his walk in the way of the Lord.
Then, in the course of the next 115 years—if indeed Abraham was sixty at that time—the Lord appeared another eight times. Whether it was an appearance, the Word of the Lord coming to him, a dream in which a vision of the Lord came and spoke to him, Melchizedek coming to bless him, or the Lord appearing with two angels and speaking with him face to face, revelation came to Abraham.
On eight different occasions during his life, revelation came to Abraham. In each instance, something more of the life of the Lord was revealed to him, and by that Abraham grew in his relationship with the Lord.
So it is with us. There is a necessity for revelation: for God to come and sovereignly reveal Himself to our hearts.
The Scriptures say that before we were saved, we were helpless, sinners, and the very enemies of the Lord. Then the Lord, by His Spirit, came into our lives and revealed Himself to us. The Lord initiated it in our lives.
I do not quite understand people who preach repentance as though repentance comes first in order to be saved and in order for the Lord to come into one’s life. I have never seen it that way. Perhaps I see it this way because this is what happened in my own life.
I did not repent. I did not even hear the Word of the Lord. But the Lord sovereignly revealed Himself in my life. He came into this dirty vessel, this one who was reprobate in every manner, and by His Spirit He came, touched me, and changed my life by revelation.
I want to read a couple of New Testament verses concerning this matter of revelation, both initially and as we go on with the Lord.
Paul speaks in Galatians about his own life and how the Lord revealed Himself to his heart. Galatians 1:15-16:
But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.
Before Paul was born, as he says, there was already a calling upon his life by the Lord. I cannot believe Paul was unique in humanity, that this would be true in his case but not in all of our lives. Before we were even born, the Lord had called us.
That is an amazing thing. At the right time in Paul’s life, and in our lives, at the very time we needed it, the Lord was pleased to reveal His Son in us.
It is a marvelous thing the Lord has done for us initially: He has brought us out of darkness and into the wonderful kingdom of His light.
Then, in Galatians 4:8-9, Paul applies this to the church in Galatia and to all our lives as Christians:
Howbeit at that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to them that by nature are no gods: but now that ye have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments?
Paul begins by saying, “When you came to know God,” and then catches himself: “Or rather, to be known by God.” He says, “No, no, no. That is not the reality.” The reality is that God came and revealed Himself to all of us.
What was true initially in our lives must also be true throughout our walk with the Lord. Everything we receive that buoys up our spirits and encourages us in the Lord comes not by our effort, not by the diligence of our Bible studies, our prayer life, or anything we do in ourselves. It comes from the Spirit, who sovereignly reveals Himself to us.
Again, in Galatians 1:12, after Paul had been saved and had been in Damascus and Arabia for a number of years, he says concerning the gospel:
For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.
Paul did not devise this. He was the most thoroughly educated in the Jewish faith, a Hebrew of Hebrews and a Pharisee of Pharisees, a man immersed in the study of the Word. Yet he did not devise this gospel or merely figure it out. It came by a revelation of Jesus Christ to his heart.
He needed that revelation to see what the true gospel was for all mankind. What was true in Paul’s experience must be true in our own experience.
I want to read one verse in Ephesians 1:15-17. Paul prays for the believers and the church in Ephesus:
For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; having the eyes of your heart enlightened.
I would love to read the rest of that sentence, but that would probably take the rest of the time. It is so wonderful what Paul prays here: that the church, the individuals in the church, might have a spirit of wisdom and revelation. How necessary it is for us.
By this, I do not mean that you do nothing, sit there, and say, “Lord, just reveal something to me,” while casually thumbing through your Bible and expecting the Lord to inspire you that way.
I am not discouraging thorough study of the Word or the reading of the Word. But in that very study, in that reading of His Word, in being in His presence through prayer, and in fellowship with the saints, the Lord brings revelation to us.
I cannot tell you the number of times I have been reading and studying the Scriptures. I usually take months to study one thing in the Scriptures, whether it is a life, a book, or whatever it may be. I break it down into its parts and do all the hard study work.
But then, at some point, the Lord brings in a revelation of Himself. Something is revealed of the truth of His Word that is just exciting to me.
It is necessary for us to have this revelation, given to us only by the Lord opening this door for us.
Then we take that word, because it is not really ours yet when it first comes by revelation. It is illuminating; it is a wonderful thing. You have all experienced it. You know what I mean: the delight of hearing the Lord’s voice through His Word or through another brother or sister.
Oh, what a delight. But that is only the beginning of what the Lord wants to do with that revelation, that word to you. Now we walk in the way of the Lord. Now we begin to apply it to our lives, allowing the Lord to bring conviction where necessary and to bring it into reality.
It becomes flesh and blood. It becomes a reality in our lives, and you can say, “Now I know that I know.” It becomes real to other people as well. They say, “There is something different. There is something he shared that reveals Christ to us and brings light to our hearts.”
That is what it is all about: the working out of that revelation into our hearts.
The second thing I want to touch on is that Abraham was greatly blessed in his life. At the very beginning, in the first promise given to him, one of the things the Lord said was, “I will bless you.”
It is interesting to see some of the things that happened to Abraham. I am going to read a few verses quickly, all from Abraham’s life.
Abraham was sixty years old when he received this calling. Obviously, he communicated it to his father, nephew, and wife. The Word had said, “Leave your father’s household, leave your country, leave your family, and go to the land that I will show you.”
The first thing Abraham does is allow his father, Terah, to go with him. They settle short of the land, about 800 miles from Ur of the Chaldees, in a place called Haran. It was not quite what the Lord wanted him to do.
But the Lord was not put out by that. He was not wringing His hands and saying, “Oh no, he has made the wrong choice. This man is a failure. He is not following My Word.”
No. What we find in Abram’s life is this, in Genesis 12:5:
And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
Even in Haran, the Lord blessed Abram and his family. Keep in mind that in the Old Testament, one of the signs of God’s blessing upon a life was material gain, material wealth, and material well-being. Not so for us in the same way, but for them it was a significant sign that God was with them.
Then Abraham goes into the land, and he slips up again. He goes into Egypt and has to tell a half-truth about who Sarah is.
Yet Genesis 12:16 says:
And he dealt well with Abram for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels.
Then Genesis 13:2:
And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
So he made two mistakes, and yet the Lord richly blessed him with material wealth. Now he had become a very rich man, though still a tent dweller.
Again, in Genesis 20, Abram makes the same mistake when he goes into Gerar in the Negev. He gives another half-truth about Sarah, probably to protect his own life and Sarah’s life.
The result is found in Genesis 20:14:
And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife.
Again, blessing upon blessing upon blessing was given to Abraham.
To put the icing on the cake, when Abraham sends his servant back into Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac, the household speaks of who Abraham is and what he possesses. Genesis 24:10 says:
And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed, having all goodly things of his master’s in his hand.
Verse 22 says:
And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden ring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold.
Then, in Genesis 24:35, Abraham’s servant says to Laban:
And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly; and he is become great: and He hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and men-servants and maid-servants, and camels and asses.
Abraham was a very wealthy man, very blessed by the Lord. All of these things came not by Abraham’s natural acumen or ability, but by God sovereignly blessing His man who walked with Him upon the earth, mistakes and all.
Is that not true with us as well? Mistakes and all, the Lord blesses us—not primarily in material things.
Part of us might wish it were otherwise. We would love to have material gain. But far more than material wealth, far more than all the world offers us, the Lord has blessed us.
I want to read Colossians 2:1-3 to emphasize what the Lord has given to us—what is before every one of us. This is made available not merely to overcomers, the remnant, or those mature in the faith. It is for all believers.
For I would have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, unto the knowledge of God’s mystery, even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.
Christ is ours, and Christ lives inside us. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ, and we may find them in our own lives.
Again, Ephesians 1:3:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Let me reemphasize that: He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Oh, the riches the Lord has bestowed upon His children, mistakes and all.
Is it not a marvelous wonder that when we blunder, misstep, and get ourselves dug into some hole, then come back to the Lord and look back, it has been turned into a blessing for us? We have seen something new of the Lord’s heart for us, and something marvelous has been given to us even in our missteps.
Then, in times when we are walking with the Lord, He blesses us—blessing upon blessing upon blessing. Oh, that we are so rich.
As rich as Abraham was in material things, able to shower his family with those material possessions, so we are rich in Christ. It has been given to us.
It is not only that we initially see this, understand it with our minds, and begin to fathom some part of what it means. As we walk with the Lord, as Abraham walked in the way of the Lord, these riches no longer remain far away in heaven or in a Christ who sometimes seems distant from us.
They become part of our lives. They become interwoven into the very fabric of our lives. It is a marvelous thing the Lord has done for every believer. It is there for the taking.
The Scriptures tell us, and Jesus tells us often:
Seek, and ye shall find.
Again, I am not saying that you sit idly and think it will all simply be yours. But there is an element in which we seek these things. “Seek, and ye shall find.” You shall find. The treasures God has given to us are there to be found.
In all things—even tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, and all the things Christians must go through in this world—we are blessed. We are blessed in those times, and we are blessed by those times.
That is marvelous. Even through hard and difficult times, the Lord blesses us, and we feel His blessing.
Finally, I want to spend the last few minutes looking at Abraham’s faith. Some writers and commentators speak of Old Testament men as being characterized by certain phrases: David, the man after God’s own heart, and so on. Abraham, of course, is always known as the man of faith.
Faith is the characteristic found in this man.
In Romans 4, Paul says that Abraham should not be a far-off figure for any of us. Abraham is the father of us all. He is a father to us.
It would behoove us to nurture our understanding of Abraham and our relationship with him—to consider what he had and what he did—because he is the father of us all if we have faith like his, both Jew and Gentile.
The faith Abraham had grew. It was not that God gave him a miraculous faith that remained unchanged throughout the next 115 years. No, it was a life of growing faith—day by day and experience by experience.
His faith grew. His trust in the Lord grew. The Lord revealed Himself in new and fresh ways until Abraham came into a real maturity, especially for the Old Testament, in his trust of who the Lord was and in his relationship with the Lord.
To name only a few things in his life, Abraham had faith to leave his country, his kindred, and his father’s house when he first heard that word—this voice and appearance out of nowhere. He believed it, and after perhaps fifteen years in Haran, he went to the land.
He had faith to allow Lot to select the better land. Lot took what appeared desirable, and Abraham took what seemed second best. Yet it was God’s choice for Abraham. He had faith to let Lot make his selection, and Abraham took the rest.
He had faith to pursue the four kings who had invaded Sodom and Gomorrah and defeated the five kings of that region. Abraham, with a small group of men and his Amorite allies, pursued the kings and defeated them in battle. A small band defeated a large army, by faith.
He had faith when he encountered Melchizedek. I do not want to dwell merely on Melchizedek himself, though it is marvelous to consider who he was and what he said to Abraham.
What struck me about Abraham’s encounter with Melchizedek is found in Genesis 14:22-24:
But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread nor a shoe-latchet nor aught that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.
“God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth”—that is the very name Melchizedek revealed to Abraham. It was the first time Abraham had heard that name and realized that the Lord was God Most High, Maker of heaven and earth.
Something happened in that transaction. In hearing that name, Abram swore an oath to God. This is the first time we find this. Up to this point, God had spoken to Abraham, and Abraham had believed the Lord and trusted His promises.
But it never says that Abraham had spoken with the Lord, communicated with Him, or had a living one-on-one relationship with Him—until this encounter with Melchizedek.
Abram learned to speak to the Lord. He learned that it was not a one-way transaction or a one-way relationship but a two-way relationship. God wanted Abraham in a place where he would speak to God and where they would develop this relationship.
Abraham had faith to believe the Lord in the next promise He gave him, and God reckoned it to him as righteousness.
He had faith, and God established an everlasting covenant with him. This was one of the times Abraham came into something brand new with the Lord, and the Lord broke through to him.
Genesis 17:7 says:
And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.
What is the everlasting covenant? It is the next phrase: “To be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.”
After many years and many experiences, God sealed His relationship with Abraham and said, “I am establishing an everlasting covenant to be your God. I will be your God.”
Then Genesis 18:19, which we have already read:
For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice.
The marginal translation says, “I have known him.” I love Rotherham’s translation of the phrase, “I have chosen him.” He translates it: “For I have become his intimate friend.”
Now we are intimate friends with one another. You see how this relationship is growing as Abraham’s faith is growing.
Abraham had faith when the Lord afflicted Abimelech and his household, closing the wombs of the women in Gerar because Abimelech had taken Sarah. The Lord said:
Now therefore restore the man’s wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live.
Later it says:
And Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maid-servants; and they bare children.
Again, Abraham was given a place of authority where he could be a blessing to others. He was a prophet who could pray. He prayed, the Lord listened, and the Lord responded.
Then finally came that final test, when God tested Abraham with Isaac, his son. Abraham took his son up to Mount Moriah, and the Lord provided the ram.
The angel said:
Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God.
“Now I know that thou fearest God.” Toward the end of his life, the Lord knew that Abraham truly feared the Lord. He was an intimate friend of the Lord, but through this test it was demonstrated that he truly feared—or worshiped—the Lord for who He is.
Some of the phrases used in the New Testament concerning Abraham’s faith are found in Romans 4:
And without being weakened in faith he considered his own body now as good as dead, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform.
Then Hebrews 11:19 says:
Accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a figure receive him back.
So it is with us and faith. Faith has been given to each one of us in one measure or another when we first believed. But what the Lord is after, as we see in Abraham’s life, is that faith would grow through every experience.
Abraham did not waver. He believed the Lord and the Lord’s promises to him. The Lord was faithful to His promises.
We are speaking of Abraham, an Old Testament man who did not have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him. Now we look at ourselves, and the promise has been given to us that the Spirit of Christ has not only come upon us but dwells within us.
The same benefits given to Abraham are given to us.
I want to go through a short list of things the Lord has promised us and ask us to examine our hearts. Do we really believe these things are ours? Will we have the faith of Abraham to believe what God has promised us?
First of all, from the very beginning of our salvation, the blood of Christ is able to cleanse us from every sin. There is no sin greater than the blood of Jesus Christ.
How often we think, “Oh, how wretched I am. What I have done is such a horrible thing.” No. The blood of Christ is greater than every sin we commit.
In the cross of Christ, we died with Him. We were crucified. This old man after Adam, which we inherited from Adam, was crucified on the cross with Christ.
This body of flesh that we live in—we wrestle against it, we fight against it—it has been put aside in God’s eyes. As we walk with the Lord, as Abraham walked with the Lord in the way of the Lord, we learn this truth.
When the flesh rears its ugly head in our lives, as it does almost every day, we come back to that truth: “No, that is dead. That is gone. It no longer has the power to overtake me and overcome me. There is a new life in me.”
Because we have been crucified in Christ, we no longer have to try to do the will of God. So many Christians are still in the rut of effort: “I need to put a little more effort into my Bible study, my prayer life, going to church, doing this, or doing that. If I only try a little harder, I will become more spiritual and the Lord will be happier with me.”
We need to come to the place, all of us, in this truth concerning the cross of Christ and our lives. As Watchman Nee says, it is no longer a matter of petition.
We are no longer asking the Lord to crucify or deal with our flesh. We are not asking, “Oh, the wretched man that I am,” and remaining in the ruts that come from that. It has all been taken care of. It has all been dealt with.
It is no longer a matter of petition, asking God to deal with my flesh. It becomes a matter of praise: “I praise You, Lord, that it has been accomplished on the cross, that You were in Christ on that cross, and that I have been crucified. No longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.”
We need faith to believe that His resurrection life is now operating in us. It is not merely that the old man has been put away—though that is wonderful—but that there is now a new man operating within us.
There is something foreign to us in our flesh, in our man after Adam, that has been put into us in Christ. There is this new man who now lives in me.
There is this Person upon whom I can draw. I can find sufficiency in Him so that, rather than reacting in the flesh when something mean is said to me, I can draw upon something within me that says, “I give grace. I can give grace into this situation. I can impart life into this situation.”
Not by myself, my intellect, or my abilities, but by something inside of me: this new man in Christ through His resurrection life.
Finally, do we believe that we have really been brought into the eternal purpose of God?
I have come to realize through some things I have been reading—and it has really dawned on me—that there is something God has done beyond redemption. Every writer who writes about this is very careful to say, “I am not dismissing what redemption is for us.”
Christ died on the cross; His blood has restored us and reconciled us to God; and all these things have been given to us. I am not dismissing how great redemption is. But there is something even beyond redemption that God has done for us.
God, in a sense, has forgotten redemption with His people. I am now speaking not as individuals, but of that corporate man in Christ—the corporate man unseen by human eyes, but known spiritually to be there.
He has brought us back to God’s original intent. What was intended for Adam was that he should eat of the tree of life. Beyond the fall, redemption, and recovery, we are brought again to that original intent God had for His people.
He now has this intimate friend. He now has those of whom He can say, “Now I know that you fear God.”
He now has this corporate man who is truly being formed into the image of His Son. That is what it is all about. God is after the revelation of His Son.
He has brought humanity into it: men and women after Christ brought into God’s intent, into God’s delight, God’s heart, and God’s place of rest.
What a marvelous thing. It is even beyond redemption, beyond what I feel in my emotions. We have been brought into something eternal in God’s view of things.
This new man is there right now, and many of you are part of that man. He lives.
We live as His sons. We shall see the consummation of it. We shall be that bride of Christ, those with whom God is pleased to dwell, where God’s glory and very presence are among men in eternity.
God has brought us even into that. Oh, the marvelous things God has brought us into.
Do we have the faith to believe all these promises, that they are really true? Can we be like Abraham? Or will we believe our feelings, what the world says, what this old man and old flesh say to us, what the soul life says, and the lies of the enemy?
Or, by faith, will we believe the promises of God, trust them, walk in them, and experience them?
So, in conclusion, like Abraham, may we walk in the way of the Lord. May we learn the lessons God has for us: to receive revelation from Him.
In the midst of our studies, our prayer life, and whatever we are doing, may God reveal Himself to us. May our hearts long for this. May we have honest and good hearts before the Lord and say, “Lord, give me that revelation. Speak to my heart.”
You get to a place in your walk with the Lord where you no longer fret when you are studying something and it feels like breaking rocks, or having a root canal, and you think, “This is really difficult. I am not getting anything out of this.”
You do not fret about it anymore. You are not concerned, because you have always seen the Lord come through for you. He has given His light to you at a certain point.
All those ups and downs are no longer a real issue in your life. May we enter into and enjoy all the riches and treasures we have in Christ Jesus, which have been given to us, exercising a growing faith in all the promises of the Lord.
May our lives be characterized by these attributes, these characteristics found in Abraham, the father of us all. Let us commit our hearts to the Lord.
Father, all we can do is thank You.
What great and marvelous promises have been given to us in Christ Jesus, promises that far exceed anything and everything Abraham experienced in his life.
Thank You, Lord, that You truly want to bring us into that place of being Your intimate friend. You want us to be Your intimate friend. You want to be our God.
You want us to come to that place where You can say, “Now I know that you fear the Lord.”
Oh, Lord, may we come to that place where Your heart’s delight is not only in our lives individually, but where the fruition of this corporate man—that can seem vaguely out there, something we merely hear about—shall be brought into fruition and to Your glory.
In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.