Skip to main content

Sacrifice


          By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. (Hebrews 11:17-19) 
         
           How could a good God ask any parent to kill his/her child? In our society, the question seems to be the reverse: how could a good God ask any mother not to kill her child? But in this case, Isaac wasn’t just Abraham’s child. It was the child he and Sarah had spent decades waiting for, the miracle child, the promised child through whom all the other promises would be received. How could a good God promise all that He had promised, and just as the boy was heading into manhood, demand his life? Isn’t that the epitome of cruel jokes?
          It’s similar to another cruel joke. In this one, someone gives a present, or someone introduces two friends, and watches as the present becomes the obsession of the recipient, or the two friends become lovers and reject or betray the one who introduced them. This was the issue in the challenge God gave Abraham: Do you love Isaac more than you love Me? Is the gift I gave you, or even the promise I gave you more important than the one who promised it? Are you looking to Isaac as your source of joy and solution to your problems, or to Me?  
         The knife hand rose. It was poised. In his mind and heart, Abraham had already sacrificed Isaac. He would obey God even if it cost him everything he held dear. And God stopped him. He told Abraham that He now knew that Abraham loved Him more than he loved Isaac. In His omniscience, He always knew that, but now he had experienced it. And so did Abraham and Isaac.         
        I sometimes fear that God will ask me to give something up: my dog, my home, my writing, my delusions of competence and independence… It doesn’t really matter what. I’m convinced my best response would be, “No, no, no, no, no… oh OK.” That’s my usual response when I think God is saying, “Go this way.” The fact that everything in me says, “No!” is what leads me to believe it’s God speaking.
          But I’ve been over this terrain before. I’ve given up dreams (and sometimes had them returned to me.) I’ve given up my home, my job, my parents…. In fact, I tend to fear accepting something, because I’m sure at some point God will have to take it away. That’s probably as bad as not being willing to sacrifice, because I’m still focused on the thing, and not on God.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more