I believe we are in a time of mercy and grace, a time when the Lord is calling those who will seek “His will on earth as it is in heaven.” Those who respond will begin to experience expedited transportation into a higher realm of His presence, by allowing Him to strip away all that stands in His way.
The Lord doesn’t demand, He woos with an invitation to come into His presence, but we can ignore the invitation like those in the Parable of Wedding Feast. Many didn’t respond, because they were consumed with comfortable living. But no bride, truly in love stands far off from her groom. When we respond to the invitation as His Bride, and come into His presence, He loves us into new places, new territory and into surrender.
Remember how the Lord led Abraham into new territory and into surrender? God promised Abraham a son. God manifested His promise and blessed Abraham with a son, but that wasn’t the end. He asked him to sacrifice his son on the altar, because He wanted to see if Abraham was able to move beyond the temporal into much more that God envisioned for him. His son was just the beginning of God’s plan.
How often do we want to camp out at the level we are at now, while God sees so much more for us? Yet, Abraham was willing to lay his son on the altar in obedience to God, to gain something far greater in God. To a parent that means laying down your very life.
God said to Abraham, “Because you have gone through with this, and have not refused to give me your son, your dear son, I’ll bless you-oh, how I’ll bless you! And I’ll make sure that your children flourish-like stars in the sky…and your descendants will defeat their enemies. All the nations of the earth will find themselves blessed through your descendants because you obeyed me.”(Genesis 22:15-17 MSG)
Abraham laid down his life by sacrificing his son on the altar. His son wasn’t an infant as many think. Scholars say he was in his twenties. God was asking him to sacrifice something that had been in his life for years. And like many of us God is asking us to sacrifice something we have grown to love and find comfort in, for something far greater.
After Abraham obeyed, God provided another sacrifice. Evidence of God’s promise and the fruit of Abraham’s obedience manifested, as his brother became a father of multiple children.
If we will give what we cannot keep, to gain what we cannot lose, by laying our lives on the altar, we will see the fruitfulness in our families and those we touch. The invitation is extended, but the question remains, are we willing to surrender what we hold valuable, for greater heavenly blessing and manifestation of the Lord’s glory demonstrated through our lives?
