SAVORING THE "GODNESS" OF GOD

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” Hebrews 11:18-19

Do you believe in the Godness of God? Do you believe in a God like Abraham’s God? When you are put to the test, when adversity comes, when the bottom falls, your theology will be the only thing left. And it will either be the life preserver that keeps you afloat or it will be the weights under your feet that pull you under.

The story of Abraham is a story about God and a man who learned to trust in Him as God. Abraham to leave his family and his home, and to follow God to a new place, God’s place. Would Abraham trust Him? Abraham did, partially. He left Ur of the Chaldees, but he took his father with him, settled in another place until his father died, and then proceeded on with his relative, Lot. Through all of this, God was trying to teach Abraham how to believe in His provision. God promised Abraham an heir. But then God waited for years without fulfilling that promise. Would Abraham trust God? He did, partially. But he also tried to help God fulfill God’s promise. He and his wife devised a scheme whereby Abraham would bring forth an heir through Sarah’s handmaiden. Thus, Ishmael was born. But that was not the child of God’s promise. God said that He would, through Abraham and Sarah, bring forth an heir. This was a lesson in trusting God’s provision for them. Finally they saw that promise fulfilled in the birth of Isaac.

But then in Genesis 22:2 we read, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." Now, God was asking Abraham to give up the son who was the very answer to his prayers. It must have seemed illogical, but then, what had seemed logical was not always God’s will. Had Abraham learned to trust in God’s promise more than in his own logic? Had he learned that if he would trust in God’s word, God would take care of all his needs? This, I believe, was the real test Abraham faced. It was a test of faith.

Abraham had come to the place in his faith where he trusted that God was even able to raise Isaac from the dead. God would provide. Abraham had come to believe this. Why? Because we read in Romans 4:17-18 that Abraham believed in God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." and that Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” (Romans 4:21).

Believing that God could do the impossible; Abraham did the unthinkable and obeyed. There is something else that he factored into the equation. He considered that God is "able." The word translated "able" is "dunatos," from which we get our word "dynamite." The power of God blows away the tension between the promise of God and the command of God. It obliterates seeming contradictions and makes the impossible possible.

Oh brothers and sisters for us to arm ourselves in every situation in life we need to know the truth of and to trust in the reality of the truth that if God is God, than as Jesus said, nothing is impossible with God (Matthew 17:20; 19:26; Luke 1:37). What are your impossible situations?

We all reach points like Abraham where the devil tells us it is hopeless, there is no way forward, it won’t happen, it can’t change, or it won’t get better. You have to have a view of God that brings like Abraham’s, a view of a God who brings out of that which is not that which is. There is no human way out. But if you are a true believer in the living God, than you believe in supernatural realities. You believe that there is a God who brought the universe out of nothing and if God is God than nothing is impossible!

God’s Godness creates a future where there is none. Nothing you can tell me about you, your circumstances, or your life, can change God’s Godness to make something out of nothing. God’s Godness creates a future where there is none. An irreparable marriage? Nothing is impossible with God! A wayward child? Nothing is impossible with God! A fruitless ministry? Nothing is impossible with God! A defeated life? Nothing is impossible with God! Nothing you can tell me would make me say this is impossible. You may feel absolutely hopeless and powerless but God has the power to bring something out of nothing.

If God cannot bring to bear on this world a supernatural reality that breaks through our impossibilities than we might as well close the doors of our churches and go home. Oh dear readers God is God, He will break in! Now think of every situation in your life and speak to it right now: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!

Savoring His Godness,
Pastor Bill