Say Yes To God (eBook)

Introduction I

(It’s important that you not skip this introduction.)

This book has four parts. The first part (Intro I and Intro II) reveals significant passages of Scripture. These will serve as very necessary ‘Scriptural Underpinnings’ for the remainder of the book.

In the second part (chapters 1-7) we’ll ‘look in on’ the lives of several ‘mentors’, Bible characters who will serve as examples for us to follow in responding to God’s ‘call’. Mentors that did say ‘Yes’ to God…most often, throughout their entire lives.

The third part (chapter 8 to 18) is an account, a true story, a testimony if you will, simply written, about the grace of God as it impacted a particular family and its individual members…my family.

This part is an account of earthly evidence of the grace of God abundantly poured out upon a very ordinary Midwestern Christian family…and their many Christian brothers and sisters.

And, the forth part, ’Last Words’…it’s a ‘How To’.

(don’t turn there prematurely!)

FOLLOW DIRECTIONS!

Saying ‘Yes’ to God is tantamount to ‘believing’ Him. If you or I ask someone for driving directions to a specific location, and if we believe what we’re told, we will follow their directions. If we neglect their advice or don’t believe them, we may very well strike out on our own and end up ‘lost’, that is, finding ourselves where we don’t want to be!

That’s not unlike knowing that God has ‘direction advice’ for us. We can either not believe it or, we can just want to go off on ‘our own’. I promise, living that way, in this day and age, you’ll end up ‘lost’ and find yourself where you don’t want to be!

FIRST THINGS FIRST

The first (and most important) positive response to God is to believe in what He has said and what He has done, by sending His Son, Jesus, to earth to restore the eternally beneficial man/God relationship.

That is, to believe in what God had said He would do (prophecy) and what He has done (fulfilled). Perhaps, you know the verse, John 3:16, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (Jesus) that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” (will live eternally with God)

We can say ‘Yes’ to His ‘eternal life offer’ or…we can say ‘no’. (Realize this: making no decision or putting off the decision means that one really has made a decision.) We might say, “some other time” or, “I’m too busy right now, I’m in the middle of something”, or “let me think about it.”

A Jewish acquaintance of mine after several years of serious searching for the Truth, told God at age 13, “I do believe that Jesus is the Messiah, but I’m going to wait until I’m 20 to become a Christian.”!! Following two incidents, in his late teens, that should have killed him, he, shortly thereafter, ‘gave in’ and became a follower of Jesus.

Saying ‘Yes’ to God is an indication that the consenting individual (or individuals) wish to ‘do’ what they sense the will of God is for that moment in time. Saying ‘Yes’ to God is admittedly an option at moments when spiritual (or temporal) decisions need to be made, decisions relative to the matters of everyday life…some major and some minor.

Do I go to seminary?…the mission field?…or not? Do I marry?…and whom?…or not? Do I buy or sell? Do I come or go? Do I buy this house, or that, or none? Which college…or none? Which career? A night on the town…or not?

There are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of ‘life decisions’, in which, I’m convinced, our Father, God, would like to be involved. After all, He loves us more than anyone!… far more than any human being ever can!!

He is interested in our lives. He has plans for us. He wants the best for us. He wants things to ‘work well’ for us. Don’t you feel that way about your children?

A DIVINE PLAN

In Jeremiah 29:11-14a, (Amp) God tells His people, “I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and peace, NOT plans for calamity…or evil.

Plans to give you a future and hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart, and I will be found by you.”

The Hebrew word recorded, in this verse, for welfare (or peace) is ‘shalom’, and, the Hebrew word for calamity (or evil) is ‘ra’…pronounced ‘raw’. What follows are two columns of the expanded meanings of these two Hebrew words:

This four verse passage, from the book of Jeremiah, is definitely a ‘refrigerator’ passage. A ‘refrigerator’ passage?? Copy this passage, type it, hand write it or glue Post’s ‘Alphabits’ breakfast cereal letters onto a piece of paper and post it any way possible onto your refrigerator door so you can see it every day. It clearly reveals how God feels about you!

It can be said this way: God has NO intentions (no plans) for His children to have a ‘ra deal’! God is on our side…like no other entity in the universe! He wants ‘good’ for us!…peace for us, wholeness for us, safety for us, shalom for us! His entire plan is described in the list in the left column above…not the right column…HE said so.

HE HAS A PLAN FOR EACH OF US.

ATTENTION: YOU PEOPLE FROM AFAR…

An aside: If you have any doubt about Old Testament promises being valid for you, today…for New Testament people…

…Lest you say, “Yes, but that was for the Old Testament people…His chosen people, not for us today.” Let’s take a look at several Scripture openings.

The first, from Isaiah, chapter 49. For me, it’s one of the most striking passages in all of Scripture. It mentions God, the Father…God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit! It mentions me… and you! This passage is confirmed by John 3:16. It’s an astounding Older Testament passage!

In this passage, the Messiah, the Son of God is speaking. He shares a conversation that He has had with God, the Father! Let’s listen…the Messiah begins. Isaiah 49:1-9

“Listen to Me, O, islands, and pay attention you peoples

FROM AFAR (That’s us). The Lord called Me from the womb. From the body of my mother He named Me. He has made my mouth like a sharp sword.”

“In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me, and He has also made Me a select arrow. He has hidden Me in His quiver.”

When I was a kid, in the 50s, the 1950s!, my father bought me one of those ‘dime store’ bow and arrow sets. It really amounted to very little. It was a 2.5’ bow with 5 or 6 arrows. It hardly ever shot an arrow straight. The arrows nearly all were warped…they couldn’t fly straight.

However, one of the arrows was perfectly straight. I kept it apart from the warped arrows. I prized it because if I wanted to shoot something (like my little brother) and hit the mark, that straight arrow was the one to use. I ‘hid that arrow in my quiver’.

The Messiah continues,

“And He (God, the Father) said to Me”, “You are My servant, Israel, in Whom I will show My glory.”(The Hebrew word ‘Israel’ means ‘He who rules as God’ or ‘A prince with God’. In this passage, it’s obviously referring to Jesus, the Son, the Messiah as we can see, the further we read.)

But I said, “I have toiled in vain, I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity; (Wouldn’t you be tempted to feel this same way…knowing just how He was going to be received by His family, His people and the society of His day?) yet surely the justice due to Me is with the Lord, and My reward with My God.”

“And now says the Lord (God, the Father), who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob (the Southern Kingdom) back to Him, so that Israel (the Northern Kingdom) might be gathered to Him. (For I am honored in the sight of the Lord, and My God is My strength.)”

God, the Father, replies to the Messiah, “It IS too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will make You a light to the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

(The Hebrew word for ‘nations’ is gowy or goyim. The word means ‘all non-Hebrews’. The King James Version of this verse correctly uses the English word ‘Gentiles’. (Unless your Jewish,...