What's Your Alternative?

 

WHAT'S YOUR ALTERNATIVE?

Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?

And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!

And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

Genesis 17:17-19

Abraham considered it a laughable matter that he would have a son in his old age, and found it hard to believe that he would have a son by Sarah, because he already had Ishmael. That’s why he prayed that God would bless Ishmael and establish His covenant with Ishmael. To Abraham, Ishmael was an alternative to Isaac, who was yet to be born. Sarah also made a decision to settle for an alternative to the fulfillment of God’s promise to her. She didn’t believe that God could make her bear a child because she was barren and past the child bearing age, so she chose Hagar, her maid, to bear a child for Abraham in her stead.

Usually, when we look at our challenges with carnal eyes, and make a carnal judgement of the same, we run for other options which the devil makes easily available. Later, when Sarah decided to believe the promise of God, and not walk in the flesh, she obtained the promise of God, for she made a spiritual judgement and “judged Him faithful who had promised.”

Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.

  — Hebrews 11:11 KJV

Abraham also, after God made it clear that Isaac was His choice, believed God and stayed strong in faith for 25 years until Isaac was born (Romans 4:17-21). So we realize what makes us go for alternatives is lack of believing in God. When Sarah got faith from the word spoken to her, she received strength to conceive, her physical and biological condition not withstanding.

Most of the time, we find it hard to believe God, because in our lives are things or people we consider alternatives to the promises of God to us, and the position of God in our lives. We find it inconveniencing and hard work to trust God to perform His word to us and instead choose the easy way out. Believing God is work! But it is work that brings us great rewards and benefits. Jesus Christ described believing as work when some people went to Him to enquire about doing the works of God;

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?

Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

– John 6: 28-29 KJV

This is the only work God requires us to do in our walk with Him, because all the other works were finished before the foundations of the world were established;

For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

— Hebrews 4:3 KJV

For every thing and every situation concerning us, God always has a plan, and He reveals it to us in His word. So when God speaks to you concerning any matter, get to work! Believe and hold on to your belief until the word materializes to you.

God hates it when we take other options in the place of Himself and what He has chosen for us. He proclaims in His word that He is the only God and beside Him there is no other (Isaiah 45:5-6). He revealed Himself to the Israelites as a jealous God, and warned them that they should have no other gods beside Him. God wants to be the only God, the only refuge, the only provider, the only source of help to all His children. He chooses how to work all these in our lives and who to use. We don’t help Him with that. He only requires that we believe Him and trust His salvation as He reveals to us what He has prepared for us. When the Israelites didn’t do this in the wilderness, God was angry with them and denied them the grace and opportunity to partake of His promise. God knew that manna was the best diet for them in the wilderness but they opted for meat and asked Him for it. They thought their alternative was better than God’s choice for them.

Therefore the LORD heard this, and was wroth: so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel;

Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation:

– Psalms 78:21,22 KJV

As a child of God, you ought to know that God has already made a choice and plan for you in all aspects of your life. Allow Him to reveal and establish it for you. Don’t come up with your own ideas and plans. Even in time of need, instead of choosing to consult human connections for assistance, go to God to show you His way out. Scripture advises us not to lean on our limited understanding, but to acknowledge God in all our ways, and when we do so, He directs our paths. The Lord Jesus also taught us to pray that the will of God be done in the earth, including in our lives, as it is in heaven.

In 2 Chronicles 20, when king Jehoshaphat was invaded by three kings and their armies, he didn’t send his most valiant soldiers to the front line to fight. Instead, the king and all of Judah gathered themselves to ask for God’s plan (verse 5), and the Lord came to their help and gave them His word for their breakthrough and victory (verses 14-17). So Jehoshaphat and Judah prevailed mightily over a great army over which they had no power to conquer physically.

In cases of sickness, instead of first seeking God for healing, we run to doctors, not realizing that they are also limited. We have put doctors in the place of God. Seek God first, then let Him lead you to a doctor if you must see one.  As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. You can’t claim to be a child of God and take full control of your life, rejecting the leading of the Spirit of God. The woman with the issue of blood saw many doctors but her condition worsened until she went to Jesus for healing;

And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,

And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,

When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.

For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.

And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

-Mark 5:25-29 KJV

King Asa chose to consult physicians, instead of God, when he got diseased. This displeased God and the king never recovered from the disease;

And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.

And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign.

-2 Chronicles 16:12,13 KJV

Naaman the leper almost missed his healing when he suggested an alternative to the solution God had given for his recovery. It took the intervention of his servants to have him follow God’s word for his healing (2 kings 5:10-14).

When we insist on following our alternatives, they steer us far from God and His perfect will for us, because God’s ways and thoughts are as far from ours as the heavens are from the earth.

God has good plans for us and thinks good thoughts concerning us. He has even said so in Jeremiah 29:11. Eliminate all you had chosen as your preferred alternatives, accept and receive what He has planned and prepared for you, and don’t be wise in your own eyes.

Be sure to get your copy of my book (Ruth Othniel),  The Power of Gates. Learn the mysteries upon which Kingdoms, Nations and Institutions of power are founded. Learn the divine principles by which creation operates and how you too can benefit from them. Choose to be victorious and remain victorious by understanding.