Heart Tracks - Two Journeys

"Then the Lord told Abram, 'Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you.'....So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed him, and Lot went with him."  Genesis 12:1,4....."Our journey into Christ is, at the same time, His journey into us.  You see, we are His promised land.  We can be assured that the giants in our lives, though they may have humiliated us, they will never humiliate Him.  He shall be victorious over all our enemies and dwell in us forever."  Francis Frangiapane

We tend to understand, at least to some degree, that to follow Him is to journey ever deeper into our knowledge and understanding of Him.  Into an ever deepening intimacy with and in Him.  Frangiapane's words though remind us of something we tend to not see, and that is His ongoing journey into the depths of our hearts.  In fact, if He is not doing this in us, we will never be able to travel deeper into Him.  The evidence of this can be seen not only in the life of Abraham, and in the nation of Israel, but in the life witness of all who have heard His call into their hearts, and with their hearts, took up His cross and followed Him.  The journey begins, and it goes on forever.

A.W. Tozer said he took great comfort in the fact that before a man could seek after Him, that man must first be sought after by God. Throughout His Word we see this Truth.  Humankind, lost in sin and darkness, was sought out by the Father through and in the Life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  He journeyed to us so that He might live in us, and we in turn might be able to journey with and into Him by His grace. By the power of His life, He invades us, and now, as we receive His life, we can now "invade" all the fullness of His.  His is an ongoing journey that goes ever deeper into the fullness of who we are, and as He does so, He opens the door of His heart to us that we may go ever deeper into the fullness of who He is.

To be sure, there are obstacles all along the way.  In Genesis 12, the Father told Abraham that he was to leave everything, including his family, and go with God to the new land that He had for him.  Yet he took his nephew Lot with him.  He didn't fully obey, and there would be painful consequences for his disobedience.  But it did not stop either Abraham's journey to the land the Father had for him, or the Father's "journey" into Abraham's life and heart.  Abraham would fail again, and more than once.  There would be more painful consequences as a result, but still the mutual journeys of both the Father and Abraham would go on.  Abraham, imperfections and all, is known in His Word as "the friend of God."  The Father did not see only Abraham's weakness.  He saw his heart.  A heart that despite his failures, even his sins, desired to follow after Him.  And he did, and as he did, he went, as the old hymn goes, "Deeper, deeper, in the love of Jesus."  And as he did so, the Father went ever deeper into the heart of Abraham.

This same pattern can be seen in the lives of Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, and every traveler of the heart road of God, both known and unknown to us.  Is this pattern showing forth in you and I?  As we go with Him, do we abide in Him?  With every life challenge, obstacle, and need, do we face them in the power of His Life?  All of these will grow greater as we go deeper.  Only constant awareness of Him, and surrender to Him will enable us to go onward in Him.  It will also be all that will allow Him to go onward within us.  There will surely be stumblings.  We will fail Him.  But if our hearts, like the hearts of those who've gone before us in this journey, are truly open to His, they will not be able to keep us from all of Him.  Nor Him from all of us.  We confess.  We repent.  We go on.  And He goes on in us.  This is what marks the tracks of the journey.  His and ours.  Does it today mark yours and mine?  Two journeys.  He has begun His.  Have you begun yours?  Will you begin now?

Blessings,
Pastor O