I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people-Heb. 8:10.
God’s gift of Himself to me teaches that all that Godhood, in all the incomprehensible
sweep of its attributes, is on my side, if I will. They tell us that there are rays in the
spectrum which no eye can see, but which yet have mightier chemical and other
influences than those that are visible. The spectrum of God is not all visible,
but beyond the limits of comprehension there lie dark energies which are
full of blessedness and of power for us. I will be to them a God. We must
understand something of what that name signifies that we do not understand;
and all that, too, is working on our side. Now, remember that this giving
of God to us by Himself is all concentrated in one historical act.
He gave Himself to us when He spared not His only begotten Son.
This text is one of the articles of the New Covenant.
And what sealed and confirmed all the articles of that Covenant?
The blood of Jesus Christ. It was when God spared not His own Son
[Rom. 8:32], and when the Son spared not Himself on that Cross of
Calvary, that there came to pass the ratifying and filling out and perfecting
of the ancient typical promise, I will be to them a God.
There was the unspeakable gift in which God was given to humanity.
Here is a treasure-of gold lying in the road. Anybody that picks it
up may have it; the man that does not pick it up does not get it,
though it is there for him to lay his fingers on. Here is a river
flowing past your door. You may put a pipe into it, and bring all its
wealth and refreshment into your house, and use it for the quenching
of your thirst, for the cleansing of your person, for the cooking of your
victuals, for the watering of your gardens. And here is all the fullness of
God welling past us. But Niagara may thunder close by a man’s door,
and he may perish of thirst. I will be to them a God. What does that
matter if I do not turn around and say, O Lord! Thou art my God? Nothing!
Beggars come to your door, and you give them a bit of bread,
and they go away, and you find it flung around the corner into
the mud. God gives us Himself. I wonder how many of us have
tossed the gift over the first hedge, and left it there.
Yet all the while we are dying for lack of it, and do not
know that we are. Brother! You have to enclose a bit
of the prairie for your very own, and put a hedge around it,
and cultivate it, and you will get abundant fruits. You have to translate their
into the singular possessive pronoun, and say mine,
and put out the hand of faith, and make Him in very deed yours.
Then, and only then, is this giving perfected.
In Celebration of Life in Him,
Dr. Jim DeBruhl, gembeaux@bellsouth.net
Everything is wrong until God makes it right
