No slaves needed

So...here's the follow up post to my last...I told you I'd say what I'd actually heard the Lord communicate to me that I refereced in my last post...so here it is: God (Almighty) wants us to know Him as "The Lord."

In Genesis 17, God introduces himself to Abraham and says "I'm God Almighty..." and explains that He wants to bless him, give him an inheritance, be faithful to Him and fulfill His Covenant. Later, in Exodus chapter 6, he speaks again to Moses and says 'I'm now going to reveal myself as THE LORD... I've never revealed this aspect of my character and heart, so Get Ready! I want to FREE my people, LOVE them and REDEEM them. I want to punish their enemies. I want to take them as my OWN.'

God isn't satisfied to fulfill a contract with us. He doesn't want slaves. He's not happy when we hear his voice. He's not happy when we obey Him. He's only happy when we engage our hearts together with His and then Hear, BELIEVE and then Obey. We aren't slaves to a master...we're in a love-relationship (if we will enter it) with THE LORD. Without our hearts involved, we're simply (at best!) executing commands from a master to his subject.

Enter the Hebrews verse that tells us "without faith it is impossible to please God." I always thought of God in this verse as a disapproving master up there frowning at me as I struggle to muster-up enough faith to please Him. Wrong! Entirely NOT the point here. God is saying to us that WITHOUT our hearts involved it isn't Real Faith (i.e. unless we receive Him as THE LORD and let Him free us, love us and redeem us), and He still isn't happy. He wants us to be in a love relationship. And that's it. That's all He's after.

He isn't interested in slaves. He's got armies to do His bidding - they're called angels. He has something else in mind for you and me. And He isn't happy unless we enter into Real Faith by believing Him with our whole hearts and letting obediance flow out as a natural by-product of that love.