Outside Force Versus Inside Force

An outside force is anything that surrounds us, influencing what we are doing. It is natural that all of us depend on such a force at one time or another, such as the highway patrol car sitting alongside the road that makes our foot pull back from the accelerator. This is an outside force.

This outside force is the law that God set up at the beginning of time. But when the Word moves from outside to inside your mouth, your heart, and is near you—then it is a beautiful inside force that you should surrender to. It is the Spirit of God to guide you. The laws are not bad. Jesus did not come to abolish the Law nor the Prophets. The laws are established (for example, the law of gravity), and it is something we learn to abide by without debate or deliberation. Other such laws are… justice, mercy, and love. In the atmosphere of the Garden, Adam and Eve did not have an outside force making them behave. What God found one evening when He was walking in the Garden, unfortunately, was that the hearts of the free-will agents He had created were missing the inside initiative to be pure in heart. As time went by, God found a man who did have a pure trust and love for Him. His name was Abraham. This man was focused and loved God and had such a strong faith. God was delighted to find a man who had a heart for Him and trust in Him. God tested Abraham’s motives and He found that Abraham was even willing to sacrifice his only son if God asked him to, because he believed God would provide for him. God tested him with Isaac, and then God gave Isaac back. This is the love and faith that God considers righteous. Abraham had the inside force—faith and love.

God committed Himself to Abraham, and Abraham to the Father. God promised to make a whole nation of “Abrahams.” In other words, God was so pleased with Abraham’s heart of love that He decided to make many Abraham clones, a group of people who had the same heart as Abraham. This spiritual nation was not going to be small in number; in fact, God said there would be as many hearts like Abraham’s as there were stars in the sky. “He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’” Genesis 15:5

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