prepared hearts

JEHOVAH-JIREH

    

The Lord Will Provide

 ¹ After all this, God tested Abraham. God said, "Abraham!". "Yes?" answered Abraham. "I'm listening."

 ² He said, "Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I'll point out to you."  Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants and his son Isaac. He had split wood for the burnt offering. He set out for the place God had directed him. On the third day he looked up and saw the place in the distance. Abraham told his two young servants, "Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there to worship; then we'll come back to you."

 ⁶ Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to Isaac his son to carry. He carried the flint and the knife. The two of them went off together.

 ⁷ Isaac said to Abraham his father, "Father?"

   "Yes, my son."

   "We have flint and wood, but where's the sheep for the burnt offering?"

 ⁸ Abraham said, "Son, God will see to it that there's a sheep for the burnt offering." And they kept on walking together.

 ^9-10 They arrived at the place to which God had directed him. Abraham built an altar. He laid out the wood. Then he tied up Isaac and laid him on the wood. Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son.

 ¹¹ Just then an angel of God called to him out of Heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"

   "Yes, I'm listening."

 ¹² "Don't lay a hand on that boy! Don't touch him! Now I know how fearlessly you fear God; you didn't hesitate to place your son, your dear son, on the altar for me."

 ¹³ Abraham looked up. He saw a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. Abraham took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

 ¹⁴ Abraham named that place Jehovah-Jireh (God Provides) That's where we get the saying, "On the mountain of God, He provides."

 ^15-18 The angel of God spoke from Heaven a second time to Abraham: "I swear—God's sure word!—because you have gone through with this, and have not refused to give me your son, your dear, dear son, I'll bless you—oh, how I'll bless you! And I'll make sure that your children flourish—like stars in the sky! like sand on the beaches! And your descendants will defeat their enemies. All nations on Earth will find themselves blessed through your descendants because you obeyed me."

Genesis 22:1-18

Abraham was a great man of faith. God asked him to leave his people and his country and follow Him to a place that He did not reveal to Abraham. No map, no info. He followed. And without asking a million questions.


The next part of the story is hard for me to read. God asks Abraham to kill his own son as a sacrifice for sin. Then He provides a ram as a substitutionary sacrifice. God knew what He was doing. It seems He wanted to paint a picture for us so that we might understand what He gave up for us when He sent His only son to die.


Abraham loved Isaac.


He was God's gift to Sarah and Abraham in their old age and he was meant to live as God had promised blessings through him. So Abraham must have been terribly distraught and dissappointed and confused. Yet he obeyed and trusted God that He had a plan. It must have pained him to walk up Mount Moriah and then bind his own son and lift the dagger. If I put myself in Abraham's shoes I can barely breathe.


I think I would say no to God.


I don't think I could give up one of my children as I have a hard enough time giving up dumb stuff that is meaningless. But in the achingly painful picture that He has painted for us we see just a glimpse of what He sacrificed for us when Jesus came to be born here on earth. He knew He was leading His son to the slaughter. Yet He did it. For us. For us. We who are bound on the mountain by our own sin, by our own doing, have been provided with a substitutionary sacrifice because God so loves the whole world. And Jesus, who was without sin, bore our sin and faced death in place of us without flinching.


God has provided for our greatest need. We have been rescued from the altar, unbound and carried home whole.


Thank you doesn't cover it.