Our Chief Concern
So Abram went, as the LORD had told him.
GENESIS 12:4
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Our Chief Concern
True obedience is not to do what you yourself choose or what you impose upon yourself, but what the Lord has commanded you through His Word. . .. The Lord, it says, has spoken, and He has told Abraham that he should go out. Therefore this going out was a most sacred work, an obedience that was most pleasing to God. One must note, however, that the Lord also speaks to us through human beings. . .. Let us, therefore, remember this brief statement: “Abraham went, as the Lord had told him,” and write it above all the activities that we carry on, whether at home or abroad, whether in war or in peace, whether during a plague or in any other danger. Then it follows that even if we have to die, we may comfort ourselves that we continued steadfast in our obedience to God. . . Obedience deserves to be praised as obedience only if it proceeds from the promises or from the commands of God. Without these nothing has the right to be called obedience, unless perhaps one would want to call it the obedience of Satan; for not to obey God and His Word is to obey Satan. Therefore let the Word, or the call, be our chief concern. For this alone produces true obedience and worship that is pleasing to God; and if we render this, we are able not only to defend ourselves with the witness of our conscience but also to look for help from God, whose voice we follow even in real danger.
GENESIS 12:4
+
Our Chief Concern
True obedience is not to do what you yourself choose or what you impose upon yourself, but what the Lord has commanded you through His Word. . .. The Lord, it says, has spoken, and He has told Abraham that he should go out. Therefore this going out was a most sacred work, an obedience that was most pleasing to God. One must note, however, that the Lord also speaks to us through human beings. . .. Let us, therefore, remember this brief statement: “Abraham went, as the Lord had told him,” and write it above all the activities that we carry on, whether at home or abroad, whether in war or in peace, whether during a plague or in any other danger. Then it follows that even if we have to die, we may comfort ourselves that we continued steadfast in our obedience to God. . . Obedience deserves to be praised as obedience only if it proceeds from the promises or from the commands of God. Without these nothing has the right to be called obedience, unless perhaps one would want to call it the obedience of Satan; for not to obey God and His Word is to obey Satan. Therefore let the Word, or the call, be our chief concern. For this alone produces true obedience and worship that is pleasing to God; and if we render this, we are able not only to defend ourselves with the witness of our conscience but also to look for help from God, whose voice we follow even in real danger.
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