Sacrifice Living?

“Abraham built an altar . . . and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar” (Genesis 22: 9). This event is a picture of the mistake we make in thinking that the ultimate God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, that is, sacrifice our lives. Not, “Lord, I am ready to go with You to death” (Luke 22: 33). But “I am willing to be identified with Your death so that I may sacrifice my life to God.”

We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from this error, and the same process is at work in our lives. God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with Him. It is a matter of loosening the bands that hold back our lives. Those bands are loosened immediately by identification with the death of Jesus. Then we enter into a relationship with God whereby we may sacrifice our lives to Him. It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. He wants you to be a “living sacrifice,” to let Him have all your strengths that have been saved and sanctified through Jesus (Romans 12: 1). This is what is acceptable to God. —Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

It must have rocked Abraham’s world when God commanded him to sacrifice his long-awaited, beloved son Isaac on the altar. What we know as we read the story, but what Abraham could not have known, is that this seemingly unreasonable and awful command was an opportunity for Abraham to scale the wall of disbelief. He is called, once again, to believe that God is good and has a plan, and to choose God as the foundation of his identity—He was a God-follower even before he was the promised ‘father of nations,’ and evidently, he would be a God-follower even in this awful command, trusting that somehow, God was in even this. While I don’t expect we will be called upon to lay one of our children on an altar, I do wonder how often we are confronted with an opportunity to encounter disbelief in our hearts. Whenever we face a mountain to high or encounter a valley too low, we must remember our God is present and abiding, heights and depths! Let us lean into Him as obstacles arise, trusting, tasting and seeing that He is good, and growing in our faith as He is found faithful! —DH