Is There Anything He Cannot Ask? – Promise: The Story of Abraham (Gen 12-25)
In the passage this week, God puts Abraham’s faith to the test. Everything we’ve seen Abraham go through, all his failures and successes, have finally brought him to this point. His son Isaac, the child of promise, has been born. And in a dramatic twist, God tells Abraham to take the son that he loves up to the mountain and sacrifice him. It’s a horrifying request, one that none of us could imagine hearing from God, let alone obeying. But Abraham, in perfect faith, responds to God with the simple phrase, “Here I am,” and does what God asks of him. While this might seem surprising, if we consider everything that Abraham has been through with God in the last ten chapters, we understand that Abraham has complete faith that God will provide the sacrifice. God is always faithful to provide for his people. And nowhere is that made more clear to us than in the atoning sacrifice of the provisional Lamb of God, his only begotten son, Jesus.