OBEDIENCE IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE

When one comes to the Lord seeking salvation, he receives it on the basis of an unconditional surrender. He makes promises to serve God. At sanctification, he renews those promises, and consecrates his life more fully to the Lord. God grants the.  se Christian experiences on the basis of the promises that we make to Him. He grants, as it were, credit in advance; but a little later there will come times when one will have to meet the installments, when one will have to pay what was promised to God.

The time will come when God will call you to fulfil His terms. The Scriptures say, “God did tempt Abraham.“ This means that God proved us all. God does not tempt men in the sense that the devil tempts them, but He does prove them; He puts them to the test. God said to Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.“ Take your son, the one I have given you, Abraham, and sacrifice him unto Me. Do not let that son come between us; he is Mine too; I gave him to you, and I can require him at your hand.

This commandment came like a bolt of lightning out of the blue sky. Abraham was not expecting anything like this. He had waited for years for the fulfilment of the promise that God would give him a son. You can well imagine, after these years of waiting, what place Isaac would occupy in the heart of that father, and particularly so because in this son was wrapped up the promise that God had made to Abraham, that in Isaac should his seed be called.
Had he asked, someone no doubt would have said, “Oh, you don‘t have to do that; God doesn‘t require that of you“ But God did require it, and Abraham rose early in the morning and started right out to do what God told him to do.Sometimes people will say, “Well, the Lord has given me this or that.“ Job said: “The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.“ God may be requiring a deeper consecration in your life.

There is nothing a Christian can give that can compare with the Gift God gave to this world; but in return for the love that He has shown us God wants our affections centred on Him. “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service“ [Romans:12:1]). Consecration is not complete when it offers our sons, daughters, and families, for God wants us to present ourselves unto Him -- a living sacrifice -- a daily yielding of ourselves completely unto God.

Let us not sit down by our cross, or let somebody else carry it, but let us take up our own cross and follow Jesus. Let us not withhold from God the dearest treasure of our heart, but obey Him implicitly in all things, day by day, and thereby be a source of blessing to many others