All-In-All

“You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him” Deu.13:4

The reverential fear of God will make you enjoy the promises of God but it does not make you live a holy life. While the terrible fear of God will make you live a holy life. For those of us who are parents, we can relate to this based on experience. You say to your child, do not touch that cup. The child is going towards the cup and he is looking at you; he is assessing how serious you are. So he touches the cup. But when you change the tone of your voice, what happens to the child? He instantly knows that you are serious and obeys. Doesn’t that happen to you? It is very similar to what the terrible fear of God will do to you. It is not because God is a taskmaster. Rather, it is because He is a wise Father.

In fact, He said I am God Almighty, Almighty there means El-Shaddai. I am El-Shaddai, walk before Me faithfully and be blameless. El-Shaddai literarily means the Double-Breasted One, the All-Sufficient One. The picture God is trying to paint here is like a woman who has six children and she nurses all six of them but never runs out of breast milk. He said to Abraham, “I am All-Sufficient but walk before me and be blameless. What God is saying in essence is everything you will ever need, is in Me. You do not need to be going up and down, I am All Sufficient, just walk before Me so that you can enter the Promised Land. Like someone said, many times “we do not know that God is all we need until God is all we have”. Abraham was ninety-nine years old and it was clear God was the only thing he had. And God said to him, I am all you need – I am the only thing you need; just walk before me. When it comes to walking before God, the emphasis is on hearing – listening. “Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left” Isa.30:21. Where is the voice coming from? Behind you right? Where is God? Behind you and you are in front of Him. The first thing in companionship with God is walking before God. God is saying to some of us reading this today, walk before Me and be blameless. Some of us are going through a difficult patch. God is saying you are going through that rough patch so that He can teach you that all you need is His Word. It is very tough sometimes, but the reason is so you will know that all you need is God. In other words, until you know that all you need is God the season may be prolonged. God is The One, it is only His voice that you need.

Prayer [song]: All I need is You, Lord is You, Lord, all I need is You. Amen!