Eliezer, Ishmael and Isaac

Genesis 15:

2 And Abram said, O Lord Jehovah, what will You give me, for I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?

3 And Abram said, Since You have given me no seed, therefore, a servant in my house is my heir.

4 But then the word of Jehovah came to him, saying, This man shall not be your heir, but he who will come out from your own body shall be your heir.

God had promised Abraham that He would bless him with a seed. The promised seed physically was someone to be born out of him. However, he could not believe in what God had promised. He assumed that since he was aged and past fertility period, he proposed Eliezer, his servant, to be his heir. But God emphatically denied and promised that the promised seed must be out from his own body.

Later, in order to help God in fulling the promise, he bore a son out of Hagar, his wife Sarah's maid servant. Though this seemed closer to be his genuine heir in comparison to Eliezer his servant, still God rejected. The promised seed must be born of a legitimate wife, not a maid. However, for that to fulfill both of them were impotent to bear any child. That was a true test.

But the Lord was faithful and He fulfilled His promise in His own time. When there was no way out with all that man could possibly do, God came in and made possible what was impossible. 

Reflecting on this passage, with the help of the ministry of the word, I was so enlightened to see that God do not need anything of what we already have to fulfill His purpose. Nor does He need us to generate or produce something out of our natural strength and ability. What He does need is for us to fully open to Him that He can work Himself into our being. Only what He wrought into our being can be used by Him to fulfill His purpose on the earth. 

Today evening, as I was praying and reconsidering the fruit of all these years of labor in the church, I was very discouraged that nothing significant have happened. However, I was very encouraged in the fact that He would work Himself into me deeper and deeper and gain me more and more. And the issue will be the real Isaac for the fulfillment of God's purpose. In fact, as I was praying all those on the prayer list, the Lord touched me to call some of them, and whomever I called were all preserved by the Lord. They all have gone through certain situations in life, mostly down and negative, but through and through they have learned something of Christ. Their telephonic responses confirmed that now the light is dawning and they are on the path of spiritual progress. Prayer really works. And that too, prayer not of the natural man but those burdened by the Lord; not of Eliezer nor Ismael but Isaac, something truly out of the Lord.