Is My Sacrifice Living? By neviah devorah (a.k.a. - sister geneva annabella grace) As it is written: 1 After these events, God tested and proved Abraham and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Here I am. 2 [God] said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I will tell you. 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and then began the trip to the place of which God had told him. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 And Abraham said to his servants, Settle down and stay here with the donkey, and I and the young man will go yonder and worship and come again to you. 6 Then Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on [the shoulders of] Isaac his son, and he took the fire (the firepot) in his own hand, and a knife; and the two of them went on together. 7 And Isaac said to Abraham, My father! And he said, Here I am, my son. [Isaac] said, See, here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt sacrifice? 8 Abraham said, My son, God Himself will provide a lamb for the burnt offering. So the two went on together. 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there; then he laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar on the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took hold of the knife to slay his son. 11 But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham! He answered, Here I am. 12 And He said, Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear and revere God, since you have not held back from Me or begrudged giving Me your son, your only son. 13 Then Abraham looked up and glanced around, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering and an ascending sacrifice instead of his son! 14 So Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide. And it is said to this day, On the mount of the Lord it will be provided. 15 The Angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 And said, I have sworn by Myself, says the Lord, that since you have done this and have not withheld [from Me] or begrudged [giving Me] your son, your only son, 17 In blessing I will bless you and in multiplying I will multiply your descendants like the stars of the heavens and like the sand on the seashore. And your Seed (Heir) will possess the gate of His enemies, 18 And in your Seed [Christ] shall all the nations of the earth be blessed and [by Him] bless themselves, because you have heard and obeyed My voice. 19 So Abraham returned to his servants, and they rose up and went with him to Beersheba; there Abraham lived. (Genesis 22:1-19 Amp) ~~~~~ While most look to the above Scriptures as being one of the greatest stories of faith in the Bible (and I beg to differ with you, but that’s another lesson for another time), there is another, deeper lesson to be learned here that parallels faith and this is one of sacrifice. Too often, in error, we think that the greatest sacrifice we can offer to God is that of death, just like Peter in Luke 22:33. That kind of puffed up sacrifice is rooted in pride. Yet, in truth, what good are we to God and the work of advancing His Kingdom if we are dead? God did not save us and sanctify us so that we may die. Instead, what God’s desire for us is that we identify ourselves WITH Jesus’ death so that through our LIVING we may be able to do what Jesus did. It’s not in the giving up of what we have just for the sake of giving them up. Why? Because Christ came so that we may have life and have it MORE abundantly (John 10:10). The idea is that we give things up because there is NOTHING worth having in life EXCEPT a life with HIM. Everything else in life then becomes like chains, holding us back from having all that God intended for us to have. Those chains are immediately loosed when we identify with the death of Jesus and then enter into a close, personal, love affair with God in which we are WILLING to sacrifice all, even though He has not asked us to. What God desires more than ANYTHING is that we would be a “living sacrifice” – a living testimony of HIS power in your weaknesses and His girding up what is already strong in you (Romans 12:1).
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 18:17:38 +0000
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