God Provides The Sacrifice

PRAYER PRACTICE

CUP PRAYER: This prayer will help you pour your heart out to God (Ps. 62:8). Begin with your hands folded together like an upside-down cup. Pour out before God all your fears, anxieties, guilt, sin, and shame. Tell Him what troubles you. Take time to be specific. When you feel like you’ve poured out your heart, flip your hands over, folding them like an open cup, ready to receive from God. Sit in silence, asking God simply to fill you with His Spirit. If your mind runs back to sin, shame, anxiety, or concerns of the day, flip your hands back over and pour it out to the Lord. When you are finished praying, read today’s Scripture and listen as God shares His heart back with you.

DAILY READING

Genesis 22:1-14

DEVOTION / REFLECTION 

Trusting God Above All Else
by Pastor Jeff Morlock

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven", we pray. Do you trust the Lord and his promises more than the gifts he gives, which can easily become idols? This is what is being tested in today’s reading. God has finally granted Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age, promising that though Isaac, all people would be blessed. But is Abraham’s faith in the gift or in the Giver? Several hints about God’s faithfulness here may help us answer that question for ourselves.

Hint #1: it is after a three-day journey that the Lord brings Abraham and Isaac to Mt Moriah. The "third day" reminds us that can and does raise the dead. And Moriah mean’s “to see”. Throughout the generations - through Abraham, David, Solomon, and others, an altar remained on Mt. Moriah, where sacrifices were provided for the sins of the people. Later this mountain would be known as The Temple Mount of Zion, in Jerusalem.

Hint #2: While later Levitical law condemned human sacrifice, Isaac would be the ONLY living sacrifice of any kind in the Old Testament. According to God’s command, sacrifices were first killed and drained of blood, then placed on the altar and offered up to the Lord. Isaac was bound, alive, to the wood.

Hint #3: Instead of placing the wood on the donkey, Abraham places it on Isaac, who carries the wood for his own sacrifice. The messianic parallels here are stunning. “Take your son, your only son... ” (used three times) while Abraham has another son named Ishmael. And “On this mountain the LORD will provide...”. There is ONLY ONE other living, bound sacrifice as recorded in the New Testament – Jesus!

Hint #4: Because Abraham trusted God and did not withhold his only son from the Lord, neither would the Lord withhold his only Son from Abraham, Abraham's descendants, and all nations. On that same mountain, Jesus became the perfect once-and-for-all sacrifice, through whom sins are forgiven and the kingdom comes to each of us.

Is there anything that you are holding back from the Lord? Is there anything you’re looking to or counting on more than him and his promises? Confess this in prayer, thanking him for his provision. Ask the Lord to establish his kingdom in the world and in you. Ask God to grow the fruit of faith in your life as you yield your will your will to his.