An individual has no accountability to anyone. He does as he pleases when he wants. The person has merged with the personhood of God and lives within the personality of God. There is no other way to know God than to live within Him; for His nature to come into your nature and transform yours. Otherwise you merely know about God as rumors and individualized ideas. We are more likely to fight for our individualization than give way to the transformation of Christ in us. Sarah could never have gone with Abraham up the mountain to take her son Isaac onto the altar. She had not yet shown any sign that God's will was becoming hers. She was happy to receive His gift but not so prepared to take His nature. We sigh at the prospect of being transformed by the Spirit of God not because we don't like the idea of it but because we dread the actuality of it. In real life as you stand before the stove and while you pull out your notes to study or as you meet with your supervisor, the Spirit of God will rise up and make His will certain to you and it is then that you decide for your individuality or your personality. There is no room for God in your individuality but all the space you need in your personality. Knowing God comes the moment you bend your will into God's and give Him full sway over your circumstance at the moment. Something will need to be placed on the altar...a desire, a grudge, a discontentment, an achievement, a visionary attainment...but it must be given up on the spot or you will stumble off on your own and gain nothing but the delusion of self-hood. Hell is not the cadre of the like-minded; it is the stuffing together of individuals who can never be together at any level any longer. Both Abraham and Isaac found at the same moment their union with God. Just imagine the love that swept over them as they made their way back home together. An individual, caught up in what he will and will not do can never know this wild and consumptive love; he is left only to talk about it.
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. Philippians 3:8 NIV
An individual has no accountability to anyone. He does as he pleases when he wants. The person has merged with the personhood of God and lives within the personality of God. There is no other way to know God than to live within Him; for His nature to come into your nature and transform yours. Otherwise you merely know about God as rumors and individualized ideas. We are more likely to fight for our individualization than give way to the transformation of Christ in us. Sarah could never have gone with Abraham up the mountain to take her son Isaac onto the altar. She had not yet shown any sign that God's will was becoming hers. She was happy to receive His gift but not so prepared to take His nature. We sigh at the prospect of being transformed by the Spirit of God not because we don't like the idea of it but because we dread the actuality of it. In real life as you stand before the stove and while you pull out your notes to study or as you meet with your supervisor, the Spirit of God will rise up and make His will certain to you and it is then that you decide for your individuality or your personality. There is no room for God in your individuality but all the space you need in your personality. Knowing God comes the moment you bend your will into God's and give Him full sway over your circumstance at the moment. Something will need to be placed on the altar...a desire, a grudge, a discontentment, an achievement, a visionary attainment...but it must be given up on the spot or you will stumble off on your own and gain nothing but the delusion of self-hood. Hell is not the cadre of the like-minded; it is the stuffing together of individuals who can never be together at any level any longer. Both Abraham and Isaac found at the same moment their union with God. Just imagine the love that swept over them as they made their way back home together. An individual, caught up in what he will and will not do can never know this wild and consumptive love; he is left only to talk about it.
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. Philippians 3:8 NIV
Is there not a point at which we must stop making excuses for ignoring God and no longer blame the other person for our behavior? When Sarah lashed out at her husband Abraham for merely doing what she told him to do, God took the matter out of her hands and put things squarely in Abraham's grip. The son Ishmael was conceived because Sarah demanded it; then when he was there Sarah hated Abraham for the part he played in the boy's presence. Why is it that God spoke directly to Abraham and bypassed Sarah altogether in the sacrifice of Isaac? Why did Abraham not take Sarah with him on the terrible duty up the mountain? Perhaps it is because Sarah lost her way in not accepting the part she played in the denial of the Lord's providential leadership with regard to the building of her family? In the end it was Abraham that had to get the job done, who had to wield the knife and raise it in faith. One might wonder which was the worst, bringing the boy or having to watch him leave. Yet in the end, each of them, at the previous point of rebellion, had to believe God all the way out to where self-ambition faded into complete faith in God and His way. Sarah had to trust in Abraham to hear from God clearly and Abraham had to trust what he heard from the Lord and not slide out from under it. No more passing the buck, no more waffling when God spoke. It is allegiance to God only that we all must eventually determine for ourselves. Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering, I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me." Genesis 16: 5
