God asked Abraham to do what?!

***You can read the passage at the bottom of article***Abraham was a very faithful man.  He had a unique relationship with God.  He was able to walk with God, he was able to challenge God - think Sodom and Lot.  Abraham was in return told that he would have ancestors greater then the number of stars in the sky.  Wow, what an interesting interaction and relationship that Abraham had, such a personal one.  This isn't like the God that interacted with Adam and Eve, or the God that sent the floods or even perhaps the God of Jonah.

But seemingly out of no where, God in a "test" for Abraham decides to ask Abraham for a true sacrifice - is "only" son. (I put "only" in quotes here because there was the son from his slave Hagar).  Now human sacrifice wasn't new and neither was child sacrifice, archeological records can prove that.  Even so it seems like a stretch for the God who has inform Abraham that he will have many descendents that he needs to sacrifice his son who will give him those descendents.

Is this just test of Abraham's faithfulness as the passage suggests??  If it is then could this passage provide us hope that when we are feeling tested by life that although it may seem grim or hopeless that indeed, God has a plan and knows the end of the story.  God is in control and should we trust with all our hearts as Abraham did here, we may experience and find more then we hoped...you see there is a second part to this.  In the Hebrew here the God who does the asking of Abraham is the "Elohim" God.  This is the God that kick Adam and Eve out, this is the God who sent a flood and this is the God who asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

Yet it is the angel of YHWH that stops Abraham ... this YHWH is the God of the people, the God that Abraham walks with.  Through Abraham's true faith in God his relationship takes on a new shape and is transformed to one more personal.  What a powerful parallel to Christ.  For through Christ a new relationship with Jesus is born.  One in which our God is a God not just more personable but with more love - forgiveness and grace.  Amazing and Powerful!

When we are going through tests and trails, if we remain faithful, if we turn to God to give us strength then we may be surprised in how our relationship with our Creator can change and how we can be amazed with the new relationship.

Isaac didn't have to die on the table to be sacrifice, just the act of putting him on the table was in itself a sacrifice.  Abraham and giving Isaac and thus all his offspring to be the Lord's or the chosen people.  A sacrifice which was completed with Christ, who made all those who believe and have faith worthy of God's kingdom.  Powerful stuff.
 
Those who follow God and proclaim our life to be a sacrifice to God and keep a strong relationship should find hope even in our trails that our God has a plan for us. 

This is harder done then said.  It is easy to proclaim faith and easy to follow God when things are going well.  Yet when life has gotten us to a point in which we feel that we have to give up everything, perhaps even all of ourselves.  We often get angry with God and look away from the faithfulness that once paved our life.  Yet God is asking us to have complete faith; knowing, believing and trusting that better will come.  That one day, in the future, our faith will prove and led to a relationship with God that is stronger. 



***Genesis 22:1-14

¹After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ²He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” ³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. ⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. ⁵Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” ⁶Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” ⁸Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.

⁹When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. ¹¹But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ¹²He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” ¹³And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called that place “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”