Faith Love
Parental love.
Love of the long waited for.
Love of a dream come true.
Have you ever had a goal in life one you had to work towards? The goal coming into sight is an amazing thing isn't it? Something ordinary often isn't as cherished as much as something out of the ordinary. By nature the unexpected happiness, the unexpected reward, the dream come true after feeling that it never would and yet always hoping, is something remarkable and treated as such. A man working all his life to own a brand new car finally able to buy it years and years later will generally cherish it above a man who gets a new car every year.
For parents wishing and hoping for a child only to never have it happen brings a certain resignation after the nature of life takes the chance of it happening away from them.
Then suddenly having that child, just how cherished do you imagine that child would be? Come on we can imagine it.
Talk about being loved.
Gen. {22:1} And it came to pass after these things, that God did
tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said,
Behold, [here] I [am. ]{22:2} And he said, Take now thy
son, thine only [son] Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee
into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt
offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
'Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest'
Our brains want to cease to comprehend this request from a loving God.
Sure we know the story, we know the outcome already before we continue but tell the story to one who doesn't and see what they think of a God that would ask someone to make a human sacrifice of their beloved son, heck, even if they'd been asked to sacrifice an unloved son just think how outrageous it is to our sense of right and wrong.
In some cultures human sacrifice was the norm, but this wasn't one of them.
Yes, since the beginning of man's sin God required a living sacrifice because the wages of sinning can be nothing other than death. Animals were sacrificed animals we had to recognize were dying in place of us so that our sinfulness didn't keep us from God. So if animals were always sacrificed and acceptable to God, why would he now ask for a child to be sacrificed?
We have so many questions we don't hesitate to cry out to God asking him why this, why that, or why not this and that. We question God at every turn. We get to a situation where something is just too hard for us to do and we tell God it's too hard and we expect Him to understand our weakness, to forgive us our inability to rise to the task. We can't comprehend all that God may want of us and we tell ourselves a *loving* God wouldn't ask anything too hard for us to do- and that's true. So if God asks us to do something we know it's not too hard, we are choosing not to do it for whatever weakness exists in us. I suppose the fact that God doesn't *talk* with us as He did with Abraham might be a good thing if we realize just how weak we really are, how faithless.
What made Abraham so faithful? He trusted God without doubt. There wasn't any great discourse of doubt, no pleading to God to change things, to ask something else. Abraham trusted God implicitly.
Hebrews {11:17} By faith Abraham,
when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had
received the promises offered up his only begotten [son,
]{11:18} Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed
be called: {11:19} Accounting that God [was] able to raise
[him] up, even from the dead; from whence also he received
him in a figure
To Abraham God's asking him to do this thing wasn't crazy. Abraham instantly looked beyond the act and held fast to the promises of God. He held fast to God's greatness. He'd walked with God for many, many years and God had never steered Him wrong. God may have said things that confused him, but just because Abraham's timeline wasn't the same as God's didn't make God's words to be lying words. It would have been easy to assume such because the natural order of things needed to be suspended for God's promise to come true. Who more apt to suspend the natural order than God though? The Creator of all things has all things in His hands to do with as He pleases.
Abraham witnessed the miracle of Isaac's birth. An old dried up womb was brought back to life to birth Isaac. A miracle and nothing short of it. For a man who witnessed such a thing by the promise of God, being asked to sacrifice that same miracle child by God could only mean one thing- God had different plans, His ways were past understanding and yet to be followed regardless. Abraham by faith knew God promised an innumerable amount of offspring through Isaac and that if Isaac's death was required to accomplish this then God knew what He was doing. There was no doubt. Abraham didn't have to understand. He hadn't understood God's waiting to give Sarah the promise child so why should he understand this next thing? Some how, some way God would do as He promised and Abraham knew it wasn't for him to have to comprehend or question, just believe.
Faith.
Pure faith.
Loving a child and being asked to kill that child- we call crazy, insane, ludicrous and with good reason when we live in a world of insanity, with child murderers often claiming God told them to do this same thing.
The difference here being, God asked Abraham to do so and God ONLY did so as a test. God would NEVER demand the life of a child, God does not find the sacrificing of humans acceptable. The ONLY sacrifice He finds pleasing is a contrite spirit...
Psalms {51:17} The sacrifices of God [are] a broken spirit: a broken and a
contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Isaiah {66:2}
For all those [things] hath mine hand made, and all those
[things] have been, saith the LORD: but to this [man] will I
look, [even] to [him that is] poor and of a contrite spirit, and
trembleth at my word. {66:3} He that killeth an ox [is as if]
he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, [as if] he cut off a
dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, [as if he offered]
swine's blood; he that burneth incense, [as if] he blessed an
idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul
delighteth in their abominations. {66:4} I also will choose
their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them;
because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they
did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose
[that] in which I delighted not.
Death was never something God enjoyed, never something He wanted to happen. Yes, it was necessary, but it was not in and of itself pleasing to God. What was pleasing to God was the spirit in which a sacrifice was made and any spirit that delights in the killing for the killing's sake wasn't pleasing to Him at all.
Abraham's faith enabled him to please God.
Faith can be tested in ways we can't imagine.
It is my prayer that God strengthen me, strengthens us, to pass any test of faith we might come up against. My faith is weak. I believe and yet I need help with my unbelief. May the Lord's grace and mercy be mine as promised by faith through no strength of my own, but through my Lord and my Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
1/8/10
Heb 12:4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
Heb 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Heb 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Heb 12:9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
Heb 12:10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Heb 12:11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Heb 12:12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
Heb 12:13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
When we read of the patriarchs and prophets, men of God through the Bible we read of trials they endured. Were they chastened by the Lord? Yes. It's easy to see where by their example we are to follow and not to follow. Were most of these men perfect in all their ways? No. But most of them repented of their wrongs and returned to the way of the Lord.
'Heb 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.'
Job 5:17 Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty
Pro 3:11 My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction
We can't forget the exhortation. When we forget exhortations God gives to us we we risk our eternal lives. Read through this slowly--
Heb 12:4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
Heb 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Heb 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Heb 12:9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
Heb 12:10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Heb 12:11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Heb 12:12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
Heb 12:13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
Heb 12:9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
Heb 12:10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure;
I'll be the first to jump up and say I, as a mother, don't enjoy chastening my children. However, and it's something to think about, a lot of times we consider our children reflections of ourselves and as such we want to mold them to be children that we can be proud of so when we chasten our children we are in some small ways selfishly doing so. Yes, we want what's best for them, we do, but our children are our heirs their children are our heirs. We want our heirs to carry on our names remembering us and yes, being people we can be proud of. It all comes back to us and our pleasure- to be proud of your children brings pleasure to us. I'm not saying we shouldn't desire to be proud of our children but this passage in the Bible is so true, we do punish our children and it's not entirely without selfishness.
God punishes, God chastens and He does so because He wants us to be partakers of His holiness. He wants us to be His heirs, His children, His sons and daughters.
We want life to be easy but it's not and it never will be.
Heb 12:11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Chastening is grievous. God's chastening will bring us righteousness. We are chastened over and over again to have no other God before God, to turn from our selfish ways and to turn to Christ. When we fully accept Christ and yield to Him it is HIS righteousness that becomes ours through His sacrifice.
Heb 12:12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
Heb 12:13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
Make straight paths for our feet- the striaight paths will give us healing any other way will result in our eternal deaths. We all need the healing of Christ and by His grace we will live.
May God bless us and keep us on the straight paths. May we resist our temptations unto blood. May the Lord God chasten us so that we may be healed and find righteousness in His son, keeping us from being self-absorbed, choosing God first always!
By His will, in love.
Amen.
1/18/11