Genesis 12:1-3 Now the LORD had said to Abram, Get you out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house… It would seem the simplest thing in the world to come at once and be blest. Why not? Welt, there is a secret mistrust of God. Is not Abraham called upon to give up home, and kindred, and country, and everything? And we tremble. Our ways are not God's ways; and our thoughts are not God's thoughts. What He counts a blessing we dread rather than desire. We lose the blessed life through fear. Then there is a dulness, an inertness, a spiritual apathy about us. Like a talk about pictures to a blind man, like the pouring forth of a musician's soul to one who is utterly unsympathetic — alas! so does our God make His appeal to us. Sad enough it is that the appeal of God to the world should be unheeded and rejected. The Blessed Life — the Life of Faith — grows out of the knowledge of God; it is as we come to see how really good and loving our God is; how really blessed are His purposes concerning us; how lofty is the calling wherewith He doth call us; how graciously and tenderly He fulfils His purpose; thus is it that we learn to surrender ourselves wholly to Him for His own. I. The blessed life is A REVELATION FROM GOD. Think of life as it presented itself to Abraham without God. "Here am I in this pleasant and goodly land," he might have said to himself; "a land endeared to me by the memory of my fathers and as the home of my people. Here are my friends; here is my business; my flocks and herds; my fertile pastures; and my faithful servants. Now I will set to work and do the best I can, toiling diligently day by day, and seeking at once to enrich myself and others by my labour. I have a goodly wife, whom my heart loves right well; who is as true to me as I am to her; who is watchful of my interests and eager for my comfort; diligent, thrifty, managing well. Then here have I also the opportunity of doing good. My brother Terah has left an orphan son. I will adopt him, and make him my care, and will seek his welfare; I will do by him as honestly and generously as if he were my own. I will set myself boldly against wrong; and I will set myself resolutely on the side of all that is good, and true and right in the world. So let me live and labour; and when my work is done I will lay me down and rest with my fathers." Yet all this time there lay about this man a larger life — infinitely higher, and deeper, and broader: a life opening up a new world, unfolding new capacities; a life blessed and enriched and ennobled by the Presence of God. Think of the soul finding its rest in God; the loneliness of life lost in His presence; the common toil glorified as His service; hope made boundless by His promise; and fear driven away by His abiding and eternal care! So God stood and called Abraham: "Come forth into a land that I will show thee." And Abraham passed out into a life where his relation should be with the world's Redeemer; where his example should stimulate the faithful of all time; to become a man whom all nations should call blessed. Into that fuller and larger life God is ever seeking to lead us by the revelation of Himself: "I will bless thee;...thou shalt be a blessing." II. The blessed life is A REVELATION OF GOD. It is quite possible for us to know God without entering into the fulness of the blessed life. Our dwellings limit the amount of heaven that we see by the size of the skylights; a foot square may admit light enough for a day's work, and it may sometimes admit so much as half-an-hour's sunshine. That is different from darkness, and much better. But that, too, is different from stepping out under the great heaven, being arched and domed about by it, and to find the golden sunshine flooding earth with blessedness and flashing in a myriad forms of beauty. "I will bless thee"; that blessing can only be ours when we let God Himself come to us. They who; rant the gifts of God only, and not Himself, must ever go without the best gift: that which is more than all gifts. The blessed life begins only when He Himself is welcomed, trusted, and loved, and when His will is accepted and rested in. I will — the blessed life begins with the heart reception of that I and of that will. And I am blest exactly in proportion as that "I will" becomes my will. "I will bless thee." I have my thought and estimate of what is good; and my desires go forth eager for a score of things which seem to make up the true blessedness of life. By these desires my purposes are shaped, and life itself is determined. Yet what do I know? See, here in the doorway of the mother's house is the little child. Like us, it too has its thought of what is good, and has the fullest confidence in its judgment and wisdom. It thinks it knows all the world, and can manage quite well without anybody's help. So away it goes out on to the crowded pavement; on across the perils of the streets; now amidst the roar of the traffic and rush of carriages it stands bewildered and lost. There is but one safety; but one blessedness. It is to put the hand in His, to accept His guidance, to surrender the will to Him, to make His way my way, quite sure that the truest blessing I can find is to let God have His own will and His own way with me in everything. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God. The blessed life is that into which God only can lead us. III. The blessed life is A REVELATION FOR ME. When we get as far as this do we begin to sigh? "Yes, I know all this is what I ought to be; and of course it is what I want to be!" But it is such hard work: struggling striving, failing. Stay a moment. Have you not begun the sentence at the wrong end? The first word is I, not thee. Put it in the right order. First, "I" — God comes to thee; make room. "I will" — not what you are, but what God wills is what you have to think of next. "I will bless." There, throw back the shutters, and let the sunshine in. "I will bless — thee." That is the right order: leave that thee until you get the other side of the blessing. When I begin with myself, what blessed life is possible? But when I begin with God, the blessed life is just the commonplace, and the highway wherein I do walk. "I will bless thee." Of course He will; He can do nothing but bless. Was not this fair world once in chaos and darkness: a dreary waste? but, lo! it made room for Him and His Will; and then the stars shone in the heavens, and the dry land appeared, and the grass grew, and the fishes swam, and the beasts roamed, and the birds sang, and at last there was the finished bliss of Paradise, and all was very good. To make room for Him and for His will is alway to make room for blessing. Yet neither Paradise nor heaven have such a wondrous manifestation of God's eagerness to bless as that with which He meets us in all the rich provisions of His grace. "I will bless thee." It is not only as we count will. With us to will is oftentimes as idle as to wish. Hemmed in by a thousand hindrances, our lofty will is mocked by the cruel defiance of our circumstances. But when our God saith, "I will," it cannot be broken. Almighty Power doth wait to make that will fulfilled. IV. In all the world there is BUT ONE THING THAT CAN HINDER GOD. It is not in the material upon which He works, nor is it in the conditions in which that material is placed. The only hindrance God can ever know is in my will. When the "I will" of God is met with the "I will" of my heart, then there is no power in heaven or hell that can thwart or hinder. (Mark Guy Pearse.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: |
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