When I ask God to help me, I must let Him choose the method. Long ago He said He would deliver Judah “not … by bow, or sword, or war, or horses, or horsemen” (Hosea 1:7, Berkeley). A strange way to wage war, with no weapons! And yet God in His sovereign power chooses His own way to fight, even as He did one night when He destroyed Sennacherib’s army of 185,000 men around Jerusalem (Isaiah 37:36). How did He do it? To this day, nobody knows.
God must be God, and He must be God in His own way. John the Baptist said to Jesus, “Are you the Coming One or should we look for someone else?” (Matthew 11:3, Berkeley). What a surprising question from the man who introduced Jesus to the Jewish people as their Messiah! Because Jesus had not set up His Kingdom and mounted the throne. John thought maybe Jesus was not the long-awaited One. But it was John who made the mistake. His job was to announce Jesus, not explain Him. Jesus is the great inexplicable who moves by His own will.
Anyone can buy a “porcelain Jesus” from a novelty store, but we will never find that kind of Jesus in the Bible. There He is Someone who is living, moving, vital, and sovereign. Try to reduce Him to porcelain or plaster and He will be gone.
His message to me is always “Follow Me,” and that is exactly what I must do—follow, follow, follow. If I try to bend Him toward my way for my purposes, He will pay no attention. I must learn this lesson carefully and say, “Whither thou goest, I will go” (Ruth 1:16. KJV, italics added). Less than that is painful loss. But to do it affords me life’s great attainment, not necessarily to understand Jesus, but to be rightly related to Him (John 12:26). That means that when I serve and obey, He assures me of His company and His praise.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).
Daily with the King 