Tuesday, December 3

SOMEONE PROVIDES: THE SACRIFICE

Genesis 22:1-18

Gen.22:2 – Then God 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.”  As God had called Abraham to sacrifice his son, He calls us all to a sacrifice.  Many of us may interpret this to mean a giving up of bad habits, and all the fun things in life that we enjoy doing.  The more we sacrifice, the greater we become spiritually.  But the law required the sacrifice to be clean, spotless, and without blemish.  Is there anything within us that we can lay on the altar of sacrifice that is clean and without blemish?  Even our attempts to do so will lead to spiritual pride as we boast of our “sacrifices” that we have made.

Gen.22:8 – And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”  As we try to give of ourselves, God steps in and stops us short.  We find that He has already provided a pure, sinless, blemish free sacrifice and payment.

Gen. 22:13-14 – “Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns.  So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son.  And Abraham called the name of the place The-Lord-Will-Provide.  As it is said to this day, ‘in the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’”  Come to the mount of the Lord and see His provision as He reveals to us the only worthy sacrifice.  We lift up our eyes and behold, Jesus the Son of God, whom we have resisted, bleeding on the cross.

John 1:29 – “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Rom.5:8 – But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  It is at this place of sacrifice that we seek Him and find Him.  Here is the gateway which we must pass through.  It is not our life that is the sacrifice.  God provides and is the sacrifice.  God is love, but He also must judge sin.  He doesn’t just forgive and forget, but pays the penalty for our sin and rebellion.  But this is not the final thing.  Beyond this gate is an empty tomb where we see the risen Christ, who provides the power to be free from the sin which caused our Savior to suffer so horribly.  His resurrection and victory over death provides the power and ability to become a living sacrifice.  Our living will be sacrificed and completely given over to His will.

Rom. 12:1 – “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”  God’s provision is not about getting all kinds of material possessions, it’s about having the only thing worth having, the life of Jesus within us.

Psalm 51:16-17 – “For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; you do not delight in burnt offering.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.  These, O God, you will not despise.”

~ Jim Krauser