Offering Your Isaac

“Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?”—James 2:20-21

In Genesis 22, we read the story of Abraham and Isaac. God commanded Abraham to go to the land of Moriah and offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering on a mountain God would show him. So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and headed off to the region of Moriah with two of his servants and his young son, Isaac. Upon arriving at the mountain, he left the donkey and his servants behind, as he went up the mountain with Isaac.

As they were hiking up the mountain, Isaac said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham responded, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” Upon arriving at the spot where God had told him, he built the altar, laid the wood on it, and then bound his son Isaac, just as he would any animal sacrifice. He took the knife, raised it over his head and began to bring it down when he heard the angel of the Lord say, “Abraham, Abraham!” He responded, “Here am I.” The angel said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” The Bible says that Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in a bush, which he then went and slaughtered, offering it up instead of his son.

The story is startling. The thought of sacrificing a child to appease a deity is incomprehensible to the modern mind, and when one considers that God Himself called Abraham to do it, it is all the more astonishing. How could God call Abraham to offer up his son? And for Abraham, it was more than sacrificing his son, but the future of a nation. God had promised Abraham that it would be through his son Isaac that all the people of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 17:19, 21; 21:12; 22:15-18). It boggles the mind, yet he did it. Why? Because he “considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back”—Hebrews 11:19. What faith! He believed that God would bring his son back to life!

God doesn’t ask us to sacrifice our children on the altar, but He does ask us to offer up our Isaac to Him. In other words, He will ask us to offer to Him what we value most. And we must be ready to offer it up, in the knowledge that we may not get it back. Abraham didn’t know God was going to stop him from killing his son, but he did know that if Isaac were to die, then God would bring him back to life again.

How about you? What is your Isaac? What is God asking you to sacrifice? What is it that you are holding onto, or placed your hope in, that it seems crazy for you to offer up? It can be anything and everything—a spouse, a child, a job, ministry, etc. What is God asking you to lay on the altar for His glory? What are you willing to sacrifice for God? Do you believe in His promises? Are you willing to take that step of faith? Don’t hesitate! Lay your Isaac on the altar, because our hope is not found in our own understanding, but in God. He wants us to take steps of faith in His name in order that He might help us identify the idols and remove them. He wants our complete and total obedience and will accept nothing less. Don’t wait; once He shows you your Isaac, lay it on the altar. God will honor you for doing so. Amen.