Human Response 68: Obey God’s Leading

Genesis 24:58 And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go.

Abraham’s servant, Laban, and Bethuel were all convinced of God’s will, that God had guided this thing. But one more person had to be convinced by the Spirit of God, and that was Rebekah herself. She responded in faith and obedience. She also saw the hand of God and was convinced that God was in this thing. The Lord can do amazing things and even move heaven and earth to get His will done on earth, but a believing response is still required on the part of humans.

The Lord initiates, plans, and carries out His good and gracious will for salvation, but He still needs us to respond in willing submission to His will. The Lord must with signs, wonders, and overwhelming love bring us to faith. Then, out of faith, with the Spirit’s working in us ”to will and to do of his good pleasure” we respond in willing obedience.

This is a difficult work for God to do, because our human will is by nature stubborn, selfish, resistant, and opposed to God. God gives us free will, but the only thing our will can do is resist God and reject His will. He overcomes our resistant will by the hearing of the gospel and the revealing of the overwhelming love of God in the Cross and the Empty Tomb. The Word and the Spirit create faith to make us willingly obedient. After receiving such great love we say, “I will go.” If Rebekah could be made willing to leave her familiar home to go with a stranger to marry an unknown man in an unknown land and an unknown future, then the Spirit can make us willing to go with Jesus wherever He should lead us.