Do you have a dream? Do you have something you have been struggling with? Are you holding onto something or someone too tightly and squeezing the life out of it?
I was reading Genesis 22 this morning about Abraham being tested. Read it and then come back...
Can you see it unfold? God didn't ask Abraham to sacrifice his son if he felt like it. God didn't give him option 1 or option 2. He didn't provide promises that it wouldn't hurt or that he was just joking and life would carry on as before.
No. He told him to go and do this terrible thing, kill his son as a sacrifice to God. Abraham was 100 when Sarah had Isaac. 100...that's unbelievable. So Isaac was a miracle child, the glory of his fathers old age, the promise of God fulfilled. And he was going to die.
I have read this story many times but for the first time vs. 14 struck me as probably the most profound of the entire passage.
It says: "So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said 'On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided' ".
What was significant about the mountain? Abraham had to show his willingness by actually taking the items he would need for the sacrifice...wood, fire and Isaac and making the trip. The mountain would be the place of painful sacrifice but also great deliverance and more importantly the avenue for greater blessing.
Just as Abraham is about the bring the knife down on his son God yells at him. STOP! Don't lay a hand on your son!
I was reading Genesis 22 this morning about Abraham being tested. Read it and then come back...
Can you see it unfold? God didn't ask Abraham to sacrifice his son if he felt like it. God didn't give him option 1 or option 2. He didn't provide promises that it wouldn't hurt or that he was just joking and life would carry on as before.
No. He told him to go and do this terrible thing, kill his son as a sacrifice to God. Abraham was 100 when Sarah had Isaac. 100...that's unbelievable. So Isaac was a miracle child, the glory of his fathers old age, the promise of God fulfilled. And he was going to die.
I have read this story many times but for the first time vs. 14 struck me as probably the most profound of the entire passage.
It says: "So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said 'On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided' ".
What was significant about the mountain? Abraham had to show his willingness by actually taking the items he would need for the sacrifice...wood, fire and Isaac and making the trip. The mountain would be the place of painful sacrifice but also great deliverance and more importantly the avenue for greater blessing.
Just as Abraham is about the bring the knife down on his son God yells at him. STOP! Don't lay a hand on your son!
We all have areas in our lives that we want supreme control over. So this "thing" in your life...has it been a miracle, an answer to years of prayer like Abraham's son Isaac was? Or is it something that you have struggled with and can't move past?
We still have the free will to say NO I won't sacrifice this, I won't give it up, I won't lay it down. It's mine and you can't have it Lord! But what did God do on the mountain? He ACKNOWLEDGED Abraham's faith by PROVIDING another sacrifice and BLESSED Abraham and the rest of the world as a result of that faith.
Lay down whatever it is in your life that needs to be sacrificed to the Lord. Your hopes, dreams, fears and struggles. God will use that faith as an avenue for great blessing in your life and the lives of those who surround you!
I would love to hear your thoughts on this passage so please leave me a note in the comments!
No comments:
Post a Comment