Morning Moments

The Altar of Glory: A Place of Resurrection - Read Genesis 22

"And they came to the place which God had told him of and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood."

Isaac was no little child. He was a young man with unquestioned trust in his father. Don't think for a minute that he did not know what was going on here. Never did he run. Never did he refuse. This was a God thing with both father and son.

What might have been the conversation between them as they walked together to the place? What about as the altar was being built? Might Abraham have assured Isaac that what was about to happen was but for a moment and then...RESURRECTION! We know from the New Testament that Abraham believed God would raise Isaac from the dead. God had said "Take thy son; thine only son."

Was not Ishmael his son by Hagar? Yes, but he was not the son of promise! This young man represented the deepest hopes of this man of God. This was what he had prayed for and hoped for and now in the most crucial moment of his life, he was to offer him on the altar. We will explore this more tomorrow, but for now...

I too have had hopes and dreams, as well as you. But what is your most precious possession? YOU! We can give so much, but we have given nothing until we give the most precious possession of our lives -that which we have always cherished deep inside. Someone to love YOU. Someone to tell YOU how wonderful you are. Some thing that you can hold high with pride: a child, a spouse, a ministry, a career, whatever. It is the most critical and important part of you and if "it" dies, you die. THAT is the point! To offer it to God as a sacrifice knowing that somehow, someway, sometime GOD will resurrect it and it will fulfil the purpose for which God gave it to you in the first place. WOW!

PRAYER: Precious Father, help me to see that the purpose for which I exist is not to preach, or teach, or write, or sing, or whatever it is I do. Help me to see the truth of the Gaither song: "If ever there were dreams that were lofty and noble, they were my dreams at the start. And the hopes for lifes best were the hopes that I harbored down deep in my heart. But my dreams turned to ashes, my castles all crumbled, and my fortune turned to loss. So I wrapped it all in the rags of my life and laid it at the cross..." THAT is the Altar of Glory, Lord. It is only in my death that I am raised in newness of life. It is then and only then that you make "Something beautiful, Something good; all my confusion you understood. All I had to offer you was broken and strife, but you made something beautiful of my life."