The Believer

Genesis 22 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Here am I. He said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac.

So just let me stop right here. Is it any wonder that God loved Abraham? No questions. No hesitation. No bargaining. Only obedience. It would be easy to say that Abraham had walked with God enough to know that he could trust him or that Abraham had a covenant with the Lord and believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead but to imagine the kind of trust it would take in the Lord to one, know that it was the Lord's voice that Abraham was hearing and two, that God could be trusted with ANYTHING. I love also that Abraham got up early in the morning and headed out to do what must have seemed to him an unthinkable request.

What would happen if you told you spouse that the Lord had asked you to sacrifice one of your children to him as an offering and you were gonna load up the pack animals and be back in a couple of days? It is almost comical.

The fact that Abraham even considered this instead of thinking, I must be insane! is amazing to me. And if we are not careful, we will do the same. We will talk ourselves out of things that don't make human sense. While I am willing to admit that there are many people who speak for God and are obviously lying or mentally unstable, there are also many people to whom God is speaking and they are unwilling to hear.

Is He speaking to you? Daring you to dream? Calling you to service? Inviting you to relationship?

He who is calling you, is faithful. His name is faithful and true. It is His nature and He cannot deny Himself. So if He is whispering to you of great and noble things, of distant lands, of big dreams or the impossible....believe. Believe in the One who can calm the seas, raise the dead, heal the sick and speak the stars into existence for whatever He calls you to, He equips you for. The lofty dreams He places in your heart He brings into existence.

And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, My father. And he said, Here am I , my son. He said, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went both of them together.

It might be said that God will provide HIMSELF for a burnt offering. God spared Abraham's son and gave up His own and isn't that just like Him. Blessing our steps of faith and making sacrifices for us by the rending of His own flesh. His Son for ours. His life for ours. His sacrifice for ours. Merciful Saviour. Faithful Friend. Loving Father. Adequate Sacrifice.