Here I Am

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

HERE I AM

Gen 22:1-14

22:1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" Here I am," he replied. 2 Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." 3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?""Yes, my son?" Abraham replied." The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" 8 Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. 12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." 13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."

NIV

What do we say about this, God tested Abraham. Did he not already make a covenant with Abraham. Did he not change his name by putting part of His name within him. Did he not already know that Abraham believed in God? Did God not open the womb of Sarah in her old age and give Abraham a son and even give them the name he was to be called? And yet now God tests him, why? God asks Abraham to offer his only son, the one he loved, to God as a sacrifice and Abraham does not even question this but goes about doing that which God told him to do. He answers God, “Here I am”.  Of course, this foreshadows God giving his only Son the one He loves as a sacrifice for all his creation. Isaac carried the wood, Jesus carried the wood, Isaac was bound, and Jesus was bound and flogged, however, Jesus was nailed to the cross. Abraham took Isaac up Mt Moriah, which later Jerusalem would be built and where Jesus would be sacrificed.  Speaking very personally here, I think I went through this same test many years ago. God knew I loved him, and I started my walk with him on faith, although I did ask him to prove himself to me, so in a sense I  tested God and he accepted that test, and performed the miracle I challenged him to in proving He was God. Then later he asked the same of me, although I did not get a chance to sacrifice my son, my only son, God took him as he was about to be born. We still had to bury him and go through that test, which it would seem we passed, for God has been blessing us over the years, time and time again, and our faith has never been shaken. Of course, we have not become the father of many nations, but still, the story about God always providing the exact need when it is required. The ram in the bushes just at the right time. God has always provided us with just the right thing always at the right time in our lives. Now in my old age, he calls me to shepherd a flock, to pastor a church, and all I can say is, Here I am, Lord.