Sacrifices

Genesis 22: 1-18

So at church today, we talked about Abraham and Isaac. It was the story of when God told Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son, Isaac. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I've heard this story a kajillion times and it's always been the same-old, same-old for me. I always thought it was pretty sweet how an angel of God came in before Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, but other than that, it really never clicked with me. I always thought Genesis was a pretty boring book just because I thought I knew the stories really well, so I never paid too much attention to them when I read the Bible. Kevin, the pastor at Third, really hit home with the story of Abraham and Isaac, though! He showed a video of the event happening (it must've been from a really old movie) and it was so powerful! I cried through some of it just seeing how difficult it was for Abraham to completely trust in God. I was thinking to myself how in the world would I have handled it and I don't know if I would've listened to God. Sacrificing my own son? Abraham was so faithful!!

Then Kevin tied it in with how God spared Isaac's life because He knew Abraham trusted and feared Him, but God actually DID sacrifice His own son. That would be so hard! But that's the thing...God cared about us that much to sacrifice His one and ONLY son, so that we may have everlasting life. Even though we are selfish sinners, God loves us that much. We are like a grain of sand compared to this entire universe, but yet God cares so intimately about our every detail. He even knows how many hairs we have on our head...He wants that deep of a relationship with us even though we seem so small compared to His whole creation.

Something that we can take from the story of Abraham and Isaac is that we need to realize what we need to sacrifice to God. If there is something in your life that is taking focus away from God, then you need to give it to God. It is SO incredibly hard...I know, but remember that God is the only thing that matters in the end. It's really hard having things being taken away from you, but once you realize that it happened for a reason and that those earthly things may be taking focus away from your Heavenly Father, it makes complete sense. That may sound really jumbled and confusing, but like I mentioned before, God wants that relationship with us and we NEED that relationship with God.