So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. Genesis 22:14
Recently I’ve been challenged to consider where I hold a worldview of scarcity or abundance. Do I believe that God is abundant? That he showers gifts on us? We might embrace a scarcity mindset when we think that we don’t have enough time, or we won’t be given opportunities, or even when we hold back from sharing how we’ve been blessed because we worry it will incite jealousy in others.
Abraham didn’t embrace this outlook of scarcity. Instead of sacrificing his son, he made a burnt offering of a ram that was caught in a thicket nearby. The Lord showed him and his people that he was different from the other gods; he didn’t want his children to follow their ways with child sacrifice.
Do you suffer from this syndrome of scarcity-itis? How can you reorient yourself to embrace God’s view of abundance? One way is to start a gratitude journal, noting things large or small to give thanks for. Mine today would include our recent summer trip to the States to enjoy time with my family, the pretty roses spreading beauty in my study, the joy of my kids as they each have friends over, an invitation to speak to women gathered together.
The Lord will provide – amen and may it be so.
Prayer: Triune Lord, for your abundance in our lives, we give you thanks and praise. Help us to notice these blessings everyday. Amen.
“Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God.” Genesis 22:12
Fearing God seems to have fallen out of fashion. We sing love songs to Him; think of Jesus as our best friend; spend times wittering with the Lord (and I hasten to add that I welcome all of these ways of relating to the triune God, for we are blessed to worship a God who communicates with us in many different ways). But do we bow our knees and honor him as the infinite, never-ending, all-powerful, holy, holy, holy God?
Because Abraham feared God, he obeyed him, and this obedience is counted to Abraham as righteousness. Abraham was released from following through on his act of sacrifice – it’s the only time in the Bible that God sends the order to halt proceedings. And so Abraham, as the writer to the Hebrews says, is one of a great cloud of witnesses who surrounds us. We who have the benefit of these great heroes of the faith should therefore throw off the sin that entangles us as we run with perseverance the race marked out before us, setting our eyes on Jesus (12:1).
As Isaac carried the wood on which he would be sacrificed, so did Jesus carry his wood – his cross, enduring its shame. Today, in holy reverence and awe, may we fear the Lord, considering Jesus’ sacrifice that we may not grow weary and lost heart.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen.
Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. Genesis 22:10
As we read this story in Genesis, it seems like time slows down. Each step as Abraham moves towards the slaying of Isaac feels like it happens in slow motion: they reach the place God told them about; Abraham builds an altar; he arranges the wood; he binds his son; he lays him on the altar… And then (big breath), he reaches out his hand (heart pounding) and takes the knife (hand shaking) to slay his son (“Whatever am I doing?”).
Abraham proves himself worthy of being the father of nations. He doesn’t grasp the promises of God too tightly, nor has he made the promises themselves into an idol. Therefore God is pleased to move forward with his covenant with his people.
Consider how this story, right at the beginning of our Bibles, reveals God the Father’s love for us. As we read the account of Abraham, we sense some of the pain and loss this earthly father must have felt. The Lord God on such a greater scale experienced the depth of this anguish when he sent his only Son to live on the earth and die on behalf of the people who often turn to their own ways.
May we honor our Father whose sacrificial love saves us from despair and the consequences of sin.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, your love never ends. Saving Son, thank you for your sacrifice. Convicting Spirit, we’re sorry for our sins. Amen.
Abraham going up to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, as in Genesis 22, illustration from the 1890 Holman Bible.
“We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Genesis 22:5
Matt Redman’s song “Blessed Be Your Name” has helped many voice the mystery of worshiping God when we’re suffering. Though we feel “pain in the offering,” yet blessed is God’s name. We may croak the words through tears or gritted teeth, but the act of singing can inform our emotions.
Abraham names what he is about to do as worship. He doesn’t know why God would ask him to sacrifice his son, but he trusts in the Lord. Biblical commentators remind us that child sacrifice would not have appeared as shocking to Abraham as it does to us, for back then it was common for deities to demand this as an act of worship – though of course the true and living God is not just any deity.
Note also what Abraham says to his servants: “We will come back to you.” Did he sense that God would stop him from killing his son? We don’t know, but we can marvel at his faith, finding encouragement that a man who once lied to Pharaoh, calling his wife his sister, or who another time tried to fulfill God’s promises through his slave, is now a man of great faith.
How might we worship the Lord today, even if we are walking the road of suffering? May we affirm him as our loving Father who wants the best for us.
Prayer: Lord God, you sacrificed your only son that our slate might be wiped clean. Thank you for your love.
Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Genesis 22:2
They say losing a child is the hardest thing to experience. One day your hopes and dreams for your son or daughter live and breathe; the next they seem quashed. Your world has changed inexorably, and how God fits into the questions of why can lead to a lifetime of questing. (I write from empathy, not experience.)
The Lord God didn’t require of Abraham something he wasn’t willing to do himself – sacrifice his only beloved son. We see in the Lord’s instructions that he knows what he asks of Abraham – this is Abraham’s only son; the one who will fulfill God’s promises. It seems unthinkable.
Yet Abraham obeys, setting off on the three-day journey to Moriah. Consider what Abraham must have been thinking and feeling. Every step closer to Moriah marked less time with Isaac. Did he battle internally, questioning God? We don’t know, but as we see in Hebrews 11:19, he came to a point of acceptance, for he “reasoned that God could even raise the dead.”
Wrestling with the questions of “why” can eventually be a means of strengthening our faith, as we work through with God the issues that we don’t understand. This side of heaven, we won’t fully comprehend, but I hope the character of God – His goodness, faithfulness and love – will frame our questions and answers.
Prayer: Triune God, there’s so much we can’t fathom; at times our grief feels too much. Show us your great love. Amen.
We embark on a new seven-week series in which we explore a famous story from Genesis. That the Lord would ask Abraham to sacrifice his son may boggle our minds, but we will see what was behind this request as we travel through the passage. We can be inspired and encouraged by Abraham’s obedience to God’s voice, knowing that the Lord of this patriarch is too the God who made us and formed us, and loves us as his own.
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.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.” Genesis 22:1–14 (NIV)
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded” (Luke 12:48). So said Jesus to his disciples, but this statement could equally apply to Abraham. The man known as the father of the nations was one who obeyed (Hebrews 11:8). Much was given to him, but much was also required.
When we consider the story in our text, however, we may wonder why the Lord would put his servant to the test. We’ll see hints later in our series, but for this week, consider how we respond when we feel tested. Are we like Abraham, who when God calls him, says, “Here I am”? He has learned how to discern the voice of God over time and thus presents himself before him, ready to listen and obey. His trusting relationship with God prepares him to follow his commands.
I don’t believe God will put us to the test in such an extreme way as he did with Abraham, but I’ve seen him allow hard things in life, which tests our faith. One day I asked a friend whose husband and daughter had died about her relationship with God. She said, “Who else can I turn to? He’s my rock.” What a humbling, faith-filled response born out of the crucible of pain and suffering.
May our faith be strengthened, that we may be found ready.
Prayer: Father God, shine your light on the Scriptures, that we might understand and love you more. Amen.
