Live Life on the Altar.

A friend of mine and I were talking the other day about Abraham.

The more I thought about it, the more the story resonated with mine.

God promises Abraham a son. Abraham already has a family, and is getting old, but God makes a special covenant with Abraham concerning a son that He promises Abraham is coming. Abraham thinks that this is kind of silly. The bible says that he fell face down laughing. Sarah, his wife, laughs, too. God gets a little frusterated and says, "Why do you laugh? Do you really think anything is too hard for me?" Sarah says, "What? No, I didn't laugh." and God says "Yeah, you did." (Seriously, this conversation is in the bible, isn't it great.)

Anyway, eventually Sarah becomes pregnant. And then here is Issac, this boy that God has promised Abraham. This gift about whom covenants were made to affect generations, even before his birth.

Later, this conversation goes down:
God: Abraham!
Abe: Yes?
God: You know your son, the only son I promised to you? The one that you love? I want you to take him up to the mountain and I want you to sacrifice and make him a burnt offering for me.

There is no response, but one can only imagine. Abraham leaves his family the next morning, lying to them, saying he is taking Issac up to the mountain to worship, he explains that they'll be back.

As they are walking, Issac says, "Dad, we have the wood and all of the things for the offering, but where is the lamb?"
Abraham says, somberly and desperately, I am sure, "God will provide one."

When they get there and build the altar, Abraham bounds Issac to the alter and pulls out his knife.

At the last second an angel intervenes and speaks from the Lord, praising Abraham for his fear and respect for the Lord and instructing him to sacrifice a ram instead of his son.

This story parallels the crucifixion in so many amazing ways, but that's not really why it struck me the other day.

The point is that Abraham was willing to give anything. I am sure that putting his son on that alter was endlessly more painful for him than even taking his own life. This was the son he was promised. The son God had promised him. Abraham had such faith and such fear that he was willing to give God the most painful sacrifice anyone could imagine. God gave it to him, it was God's to take back. Abraham believed that if God had been faithful in bringing Issac into his life,t here was no doubt that God was going to be less faithful in his obedience.

My point is, I think there are a lot of things in my life that I fear putting on the altar. Clearly, everything I have is from God, there is no reason I should hold it back from Him. Nothing should stand in the way of my effort to be obedient. God promises good things, and he will be faithful, He will bring good things. But those good things cannot get in the way of my love for Him. In the same way Jesus was the sacrifice for all, I must be willing to sacrifice all to walk with Jesus.

Another important point is that in Abraham's obedience, Issac was spared. Just because God needed to know that Abraham would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, doesn't mean that God was ultimately cruel to Abraham or Issac. Just because I have to be willing to lose it all to follow God's will doesn't mean that I will. Maybe I will. I still believe that God will be faithful. But I think both parts of this lesson are equally as important for my heart right now.

Nothing can be so important that I wont put it on the altar.
Just because I put it on the altar doesn't mean that God's going to take it from me.
The fact is that everything should always be in His hands and never in mine.
My faith in God's goodness and righteousness needs to be bigger than my love for anything else or my fear of losing anything else.