Momentum: How To Ignite Your FaithSample

GOD’S THRONE IS A SINGLE-SEATER Imagine that one day my wife walks by my computer and sees a picture of another attractive woman on my screensaver. Let me tell you what her response would not be. She will not say, “You have a right to your privacy. Your other relationships really aren’t my business.” No! With some passion and more than a little anger, she would demand some answers. Inherent in our marriage commitment is an expectation of undivided devotion. In the same way, inherent in my faith commitment to Christ is an expectation of undivided devotion. One thing we know about a throne is that it is a single-seater, and God is not willing to share the throne of our lives with anyone or anything. In Genesis 22, God gave Abraham more than just a test of his devotion. It is the mother of all tests. He called on him to surrender his son Isaac. The son of promise. The son of his old age. Actually, the call was not just to surrender his son, but to sacrifice his son—to kill him. God was asking Abraham to literally, physically sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering on top of Mount Moriah. Don’t let your familiarity with the story lessen how horrifying this would be for a dad. The Bible says he loaded his donkey, cut some wood, conscripted two servants, and then he and Isaac headed off for a three-day journey to the mountains (Genesis 22:3). Abraham built an altar, tied up his son, and laid him on it. He then took the knife and raised it to slay his own son . . . when, finally, God stopped him at the last second. How could Abraham go that far? We learn from the New Testament that Abraham actually believed God would raise Isaac from the dead (Hebrews 11:19). He had never seen or even heard of someone being raised from the dead. But Abraham so strongly believed in God’s promise that blessings would come through Isaac that he trusted God to do the miraculous in order to keep his promise. At that moment, with knife in hand and his arm raised, Abraham was saying to God, “I’m all in. There is nothing I’ve held back from you.” WHAT ABOUT YOU? What or who is sitting on your single-seater throne? Today’s Takeaway There is no such thing as partial surrender.