Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, Which are You Most Like?

Dear fellow saints, God, after just recently crippling my "natural man" has decided that now is the time to tell me that I even had a "natural man" ... We all pretty much know we have an "old man", but if you've been like me, who've been like Jacob, you have no idea that you have a "natural man", or that it's your "natural man" that dares to barter, bargain and wrestle with God ... The Lord just showed me via a link to a Watchman Nee article intitled "Changed Into His Likness", which is a Holy Ghost inspired expose of the characters of the three great patriarch's (Abraham, Isaac & Jacob) that God started us all out from, and how and why God chose these three distinct and different personalities in the first place ... Choose the one you most identify with and let the Holy Ghost minister to you your assets and deficits, for Nee touches on all three, as does Dr. Stewart Custer in a series of thought provoking sermons (listed in numbered series) whose links are also provided below ... Jacob has always been my favorite post deluvian OT saint, because he wrestled with God, but I truly had no idea who Jacob was and subsequently who I am, until the Holy Ghost revealed to me what He's just decided to reveal ... Those of us who identify with any of the three of these old testament pillars will be blessed by the link below. ... To God be all the glory, honor and praise, for we serve a mighty, loving, kind and long suffering God ... Amen ...CHANGED INTO HIS LIKNESS - LESSONS ON ABRAHAM, ISAAC & JACOB ... BY: WATCHMAN NEE: http://www.worldinvisible.com/...(I truly love brother Ravenhill, but nobody gives me spiritual chills like brother Nee, the above link will blow your mind)LESSONS VIA ABRAHAM:http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?...Type Abraham into: Search keyword within results.LESSONS VIA ISAAC:http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?...Type Isaac into: Search keyword within results.LESSON VIA JACOB:http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?...Type Jacob into: Search keyword within results.

This Sunday past i did a lot of studying and praying about the Watchman Nee writing listed above ... If anyone is interested, i wrote down what i personally got, as a Jacob type Christian, from Nee's writing under;The Watchman at his finest ... my Gleanings from Nee's "Changed into His Likeness" ...https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2571&forum=34#16529(Edit 11/13/06 - Thanks to Chadster i found it again)With the possibility of expressing this ad-nauseam, this is the most life changing "word" i've heard in quite a long time ...

Rahman,Thanks for being so open. Love what you wrote and found it very true. Isn't it awsome to get a new revelation of God, something you haven't seen before and you feel like you'll explode if you don't share it!!! I praise the Lord with you for your new found revelation. :) Anything that makes us see God as "more" than what we thought and ourselves in a different light (less than what we thought)- is so neat.I remember when I really wrestled (like Jacob)with God at a major turning point in my christian walk. I rememeber even thinking, 'Oh, please God, just don't let me come out of this with a 'limp'" But I knew God, and when you wrestle with Him, you are going to have a limp afterwards to remind you of the struggle and to keep you humble.In my mind, I knew what a 'limp' meant to me. Everyone has their own idea of what "limp" they don't want God to give them. Yes, I have this limp now (and only i know what it is) but I don't mind it nearly as much as I thought. It indeed does keep me humble.In Him, Chanin

Sister Chanin, It truly is "awesome to get a new revelation of God", and in this one i'm dumb struck ... If anyone had told me that i would one day be this overjoyed in recieving the blessing of a limp from God, i'd of thought them as crazy as most folk think i am ... '0) ... From the time you sent me that first "e" mail i knew you knew something that i didn't know yet ... i knew you were ahead of me, which is why i took to heart, and prayed about so much of what the goodness of our Lord caused you to share with me ... Thank you Lord Jesus! ... Thank you sister Chanin! ... He would no longer have me ignorant, "He must increase, i must decrease", that's your 100% correct mantra, and now mine is "i am nothing" ... i think this to myself all the time now, and it gives me the warmest sensation, for it is the key to the erasing of all bondage and fear ... Out of His divine loving kindness, and mercy, He met me in my darkness for a WWF match, and occupied my total attention until He could get me to His dawn, then He crippled me, so that He can now go on to moving me toward healing at Shalem, His ultimate purpose for me at Bethel the second time, then on to Hebron, and finally Egypt ... You know in my wrestling with Him i'd keep telling Him, "Lord, i want to be like Your Apostle Paul", and He'd say back to me, "But I want you to be like My Apostle John" ... Now i know why ... Sister Chanin you posted:((( Yes, I have this limp now (and only i know what it is) but I don't mind it nearly as much as I thought. It indeed does keep me humble. ))) Amen, and amen, and amen ... i thank God for finally putting me in my place, or better yet putting me in His place ... i just love Him, love Him, love Him! ... i love you Lord Jesus ... i love You! ... Amen

I am so happy for you. Just for the record, I have not "arrived" anywhere yet. :) Still making my way along this path as a fellow traveler, but happy I am not still stuck at the starting gate.It is very weird how you can say the same thing over and over to people- (and it seems so simple to you) but they don't quite get what you're saying, they can nod their heads and say "yes, I understand"- but you know they have not "experienced" it yet for themselves, and until they do, they will not know what you are really talking about.That's why it takes "revelation". You can preach something at people until your hoarse, but until they get the "revelation" of the truth- it never makes it's way into their hearts. Until the veil has been lifted off from their eyes and they have experienced it themselves, there is no amount of preaching or coercing them into your way of thinking. His will is that we receive this wisdom and revelation- which is why I always pray for the Lord's will to be done in people's lives.It is frustrating at first because you want everyone to "see" what you see. But they don't, and they won't right away- unless we pray for the veil to be lifted from their eyes as well and for the Lord's will to be done in their lives too.Isn't everything so much simpler this way?! :-) A bit frustrating at trying to relate it to others, but still simpler for us and how we live out our Christianity.Praising God with you!Chnain

Well it's over 2 years later from this initial thread and our Lord is still ministering to me in a juxtaposition of the events in Jacob's life and my own, and tho painful to post this i feel led of Holy Spirit to share ...

This was also birthed from reading bro Jaybird's thread;

What is Gods will?
https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=13179&forum=35

The following search and listening to of the sermons below have to do with what's happening in a saint's life who has some history with our Lord, then we stop just short (Shechem) of where God really want's us to be (Bethel for the second time) for whatever the reason ...

You know it just hit me that in analogy we as the Body might be in Shechem collectively, when Our Lord in fact want's us back to Bethel anew, to a revisiting of our first awakening to Him ...

Anyhow anyone identifying with spiritually and/or mentally being in Shechem right now might find these sermons uplifting;

[b]ALMOST THERE (Tired and Still Holding Some Residual Idols)[/b]

Jacob in Shechem
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?currSection=&sermonID=7230105134

Jacob At Shechem
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?currSection=&sermonID=8260515268

Incident at Shechem & Journey's End
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?currSection=&sermonID=81105102119

[b]THERE!!! (Renewed with Residual Idols Buried)[/b]

The Return To Bethel
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=8110123556

Jacob Returns To God (Bethel the 2nd Time)
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=8260515541

Praise God that we're not alone in this walk, that He's with us always, He'll never leave us or forsake us, and He's determined to finish this good work He's called us to ... Blessed be the name of our Lord Jesus!

Jacob is in Hershey Pa...

Chocolate town is bittersweet for I am still looking for two guys who were in a dream I had...

God Bless

Jeff

Bro Jeff you wrote;
"Chocolate town is bittersweet for I am still looking for two guys who were in a dream I had..."

Care to elaborate? ... :-D

Blessings,

Bro R

In furtherance of this lesson i believe our Lord is instilling upon me, this weekend He has impressed on me even more just how "un-heroic", apart from God, even the OT saints were ...

i don't know if you're like me but in the past i've always held the OT saints so high up on a pedestal that even tho Scripture makes it pretty plain that they too were just as human as ourselves, as human as me, i never really, really quite have allowed myself to see it ... A brother and i we're just
discussing this this weekend in regards Noah, a man who truly found favor with our Lord, but who obviously had a problem with consuming to much of the fermentation of the vine ... i could'nt see it before that Noah hadn't all of a sudden discovered wine making right after the flood, and if that be the case then i began to wonder how many of those around him (pre-flood) knew that Noah had a thing for Taylor's Port ... All this to say, Noah wasn't perfect, but apparently his heart condition was right enough to have found favor with God ... There are so many instances now when i review the lives of many an OT saint where the weakness of their humaness came thru, but God used them in spite of it to His benefit and glory ...

Elijah was such a one as i used to wonder how could he have been given the ability to call down fire from heaven, or open up and shut heaven to rain, but then also be sucsceptable to being very afraid of Jezebel? ... i think i have a better understanding of it now, because i know how sure and powerful i feel/seem when i'm under the anointing/power of Holy Spirit, but then again back to my own fears and timidity when i'm not ... i thank God for this scripture;

Jas.5:17 - "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months."

And for this commentary on why any of us can be successful in use of/for God;

Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible
"The power of prayer is here proved from the success of Elijah. This may be encouraging to us even in common cases, if we consider that Elijah was a man of like passions with us. He was a zealous good man and a very great man, but he had his infirmities, and was subject to disorder in his passions as well as others. In prayer we must not look to the merit of man, but to the grace of God. Only in this we should copy after Elijah, that he prayed earnestly, or, as it is in the original, in prayer he prayed."

The lives of the OT saints really bring home to me the Proverbs that says to the effect "we "called" plan our lives (our will) , but God orders our steps (His will) ... Something as of late has really dawned on me about "our own free will" and "God's will" ... i think we get into trouble when we attempt to seperate the two, or pit them against one another, when now it seems to me it's not either or in operation, but both at the same time ... It's like i heard a brother say "God is the alpha (A) and the omega (Z), who manuevers His will thru our B to Y (our will) ... Or this better analogy that came to me this weekend, "My will may be the inside of my egg, but God's will is my shell" ... Do i 100% understand how His will impacts, or even undermine my own? ... No, not even a little bit, but i do understand this, He has His hand on me, and tho He's dealing with my B to Y, i believe He's intent on getting me to Z, the ultimate fulfilment of His will for my Life ...

The way i figure it is what He's revealed to me presently is (like Jacob) i have run, bargained, laboured, wrestled, and detoured my total surrender to Him to the point of where i'm now around S,T ...

Like Jacob at Shechem spiritually i'm almost to a completion, having almost come full circle to Bethel anew, but why Jacob then (me now) settled in Shechem tho he knew he was supposed to go back to Bethel was something our Lord showed me this weekend ... By the time Jacob got to Shechem he was beat, dead tired, wasted, physically-emotionally-mentally and spiritually drained ... Why? ... Because Jacob just couldn't rest in the promise of God, without his having to have some input into it ... He like so many OT saints, had to attempt to help God, because the promise just didn't seem like it was coming there way ... Then Jacob, as myself, had some fear and self-esteem issues, he wanted to be first, he wanted to shine, he wanted to prove that he wasn't just second best, that he was a contender, and that's just what he was, determined by his own power to "get there"! ...

Jacob's whole life was one of struggle and one sorrow after another (man can i identify), but God was in it as evidenced by the high points (and thank God that i identify here too) ... Seems God just rode all over, within and thru Jacob's shenanigans to His own ultimate purpose and glory, and to Jacob's benefit (complete rest in Him finally) at Bethel 2 ... Attempting to fast forward God by barter, or any other means other than just complete faith in Him, is destined to leave one pretty pooped in the end ... This was really brought home by this Charles Stanley sermon i heard this weekend ...

[b] God's Schedule[/b]
http://ww2.intouch.org/site/c.7nKFISNvEqG/b.1014815/k.873A/InTouch_Radio.htm

i believe God allows us Shechem's from time to time, tho i've come to believe that such waiting experiences are our choice ... i also believe via Jacob's experience that He'll not allow us to stay there but for so long, and that by circumstance He will eventually prompt us out and move us on to where we're supposed to be in His will/plan ... That door i see in front of me is about to open!

Either our Lord is operating in my life in a way that to me isn't obvious in most, or i'm in serious mental malady ... Of course i believe the former, and something wonderful is happening to me ... i sense in my spirit that spiritually i'm almost where He wants me to be, the place where we first met, that place of just the awe alone that God is in this place (in me) and mindful of me, that place just before i began to throw my "ifs" (conditions) into our marriage, that place before, as usual, "ME" took pre-immenece over "HIM" again ...

And yet thru this all He's not left me, nor forsook me, but moved me on to my "freeing" and His "glory" in spite of my "self" ... Saints how could we ALL be so blessed than as to have the King of Kings strive with us ...

God truly is LOVE! ... Amen ... :-D