GLEANINGS - GenesisSample

Why did God test Abraham?

The call to sacrifice Isaac was Abraham's ultimate test of faith. Earlier God had promised Abraham that he would make a great nation of him through Isaac. This knowledge forced Abraham to either trust God with what mattered most to him or distrust God. Abraham chose to trust.

Notice how God highlights the cost to Abraham through the multiple descriptions of his special relationship with Isaac. He refers to Isaac as “his son,” but then goes on to call him the patriarch’s “only son,” and finally the child that he “loves so much.” He wanted to test Abraham’s loyalties by showing him the one area of his life where he’d held back.

Isaac also had to trust in God and his father to willingly become the sacrifice. He had to be old enough to carry the wood and notice the absence of the sacrificial animal. Just virtue of the fact that he could carry the wood means that Isaac would have been able to put up resistance to his aged father’s attempt to sacrifice him. Thus, Isaac himself came to participate in this act of obedience by his independent decision. It was a test of his faith as well.

Abraham told his servants "we" will come back to you, meaning both he and Isaac. Abraham must have believed God would either provide a substitute sacrifice or would raise Isaac from the dead. Mount Moriah, where this event took place, means "God will provide."

This story of God testing Abraham’s faith is one of the clearest types of the crucifixion that appears in the Old Testament.

God used Abraham to picture the greatest example of His love—long before Jesus gave His life for us. God has to give the ultimate illustration, something that would truly wrench our hearts and make us disgusted about the nature of a sacrifice/burnt offering. Why? Because it will set up for us just how horrible it was for God to sacrifice His own Son. We can never really appreciate the loss of one’s child until it is made a real possibility. (Abraham was willing to give up his child but God stopped him; God did give up His Child.)

Abraham passed the test, demonstrating that he feared God. The phrase “fear God” and the related “fear of the Lord” describes a proper relationship with God

Why does God test our faith? There is a sense in which faith must never ask ‘Why?’ because faith trusts the Lord and leaves the ‘Whys’ to Him; and yet it is true to say that the Bible says that He tests our faith to prove the genuineness of it, to increase the measure of it and to use the testimony of it.

God will always give back to us far more than He asks us to give up for Him. He may do giving back in this life, but if not, He will most certainly grant us an abundant reward in the life to come

APPLICATION QUESTION:

Who or what do you love more than anything else in the world? Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. In what ways does your life demonstrate that you will not allow anything to come before God?

QUOTE:

If Jesus Christ is God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him. C.T Studd

PRAYER:

Lord, I pray that I will never put anything or anyone before You. Search me O God, even today I pray. Amen