Just Beyond The Blessing

Genesis 22: 1 - 2, Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." Then He said, "Take now 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 of which I shall tell you." NKJV

Are you waiting on God for a promise to be fulfilled in your life? Abraham is called the father of the faith; he believed God's promise that He would make him a father of many nations. For twenty-five years Abraham and Sarah waited on the Lord to fulfill the promise of a son. Can you imagine being a Jewish man with a name that meant, "Father of a multitude" yet you were unable to conceive? Just think of the shame and the reproach that he must have had to endure while waiting on the Lord to bless them with the promised son, Isaac.

 However, that all changed the day that Sarah gave birth to a miracle... seeing that she was ninety years of age. Have you ever noticed that people will sometimes turn to the Lord when they have a need that only He can fill, but once they receive their miracle, they tend to go back to their old lifestyle? But, as we see in our scripture today, this was not so with Abraham. Isaac has now grown to be a young man and God puts Abraham's obedience to the test. Will Abraham love his blessing more than the Lord?

Why is it important for you and me to know about the life and the decisions of Abraham? Because if we don't understand the principle reason why God asked Abraham to offer his son upon the altar, then we might have a tendency to relax once we get our heart's desire and then miss what is just beyond the blessing.

Gen 22:15-19, Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said:"By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son -- blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." NKJV

Had Abraham told God, "I don't want to obey your command and offer my son upon the altar, because I love him more," Isaac would not have had to climb upon the altar, and Abraham would have lived the remainder of his years enjoying his son but...

Because Abraham obeyed God's command and offered Isaac upon the altar, God granted him great authority. After this one act of faith, God made a vow to Abraham that he would be blessed even more and that his descendants would also be blessed and have authority over their enemies. This gives us a lot to think about, once we have been blessed by the Lord's graciousness. Will we continue to be obedient and faithful to the Lord when He asks us to give up something that we hold very dear to our hearts?  Does the Lord want us to be blessed? Absolutely, but He doesn't want the blessings to have us. If they don't captivate our hearts, then He can really bless us!

Blessed to Be a Blessing,
Pastor Asa