“for it is God who Works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” NKJV
There is an important aspect of our walk with God in which He will test our willingness to do something even if in the end we will not have to do it. This is a test that God uses to see if we are more motivated to worship Him or our promises. He is the God who makes the promises, and therefore, our loyalty should be towards Him, the one who determines when and how they will manifest.
Only He knows what it will take for us to get to our promised lands. However, because it is important for us to not succumb to idolatry on the way to our promises, there will be times, even repeated times, in which He will test our willingness to “kill” those promises.
We see this example with our father of faith (trust in God), Abraham who was asked to put a knife to his son, Isaac. He and his wife Sarah had been believing for 25 years to have a son and God had shown His faithfulness and powerful hand to manifest that promise to them in their old years even though they had made mistakes on the way to that manifestation.
Genesis 22:9-12 says, “9Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order, and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
11But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’
So he said, ‘Here I am.’
12And He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from Me.’” NKJV
Because God will not share his glory with idols (Exodus 20:23; Isaiah 42:8), He will make sure that there is no idolatry in us when we reach our destiny. And that is one chief reason why He asks us to abandon or put on the altar what He has promised us, whether on the way to its manifestation, or afterward.
It is also vital to highlight that being willing to obey guards our hearts from defilement. While we know that there is protection in our obedience from the wiles of the enemy, there is also protection of our hearts (our souls) from being contaminated with the influence of the world and our healing is procured, be it mental, emotional or physical as we seek His help to be healed when we have received wounds due to our steadfastness to obey every command from God no matter what He asks us to do or whether we understand it or not.
This is what Abraham did. He did not understand fully what God was asking of him when He asked him to slay his only son that was promised to him and that he had to believe for so many years. God had done a miraculous thing for him and his wife by giving them a son while defying the natural laws of child bearing. So, if God is the God of the generations, why did He decide to test Abraham by asking him to slay his promised son?
The answer to that question is that God is the God of the families. And because He wanted to show that family is important to Him, not only was Isaac a manifestation of His miraculous power, but he was also a testimony that just as there is seedtime, and harvest as long as the earth remains (Genesis 8:22), there is also a fight for families to remain in the earth in the way designed by Him because that is how He chose to bless us, multiply us, and make communities.
But this blessing is to be passed down to the next generations of God’s servants to be determined co-laborers, Bible believers, hungry for more of Him, and willing and obedient to do His good pleasure on the earth.
Isaiah 1:19 says, “If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land.” NKJV
This was also true of Abraham since God had in mind the multiplication of his family as well as the blessing He had planned for every family that will learn what Abraham exemplified on the earth for them to bless themselves. Genesis 22:13-18 says,
13 “Then Abraham noticed a ram whose horns were caught in a bush. So Abraham went and took the ram. He offered it, instead of his son, as a sacrifice to God. 14 So Abraham gave that place a name, “The Lord Provides.” Even today people say, “On the mountain of the Lord, he will give us what we need.”
15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time. 16 The angel said, “You were ready to kill your only son for me. Since you did this for me, I make you this promise: I, the Lord, promise that 17 I will surely bless you and give you as many descendants as the stars in the sky. There will be as many people as sand on the seashore. And your people will live in cities that they will take from their enemies. 18 Every nation on the earth will be blessed through your descendants. I will do this because you obeyed me.” 19Then Abraham went back to his servants. They all traveled back to Beersheba, and Abraham stayed there.” ERV
This blessing included a continual provision, wealth to be able to walk in dominion in the earth, protection from his enemies, authority and victory over his enemies as God fought his battles and gave him great plunder from the battles. Abraham also received many descendants of sons and daughters, natural and spiritual that would learn to apply in their lives what he modeled in obedience, authority, willingness to be radical in his relationship and partnership with God, as well as the ability to be a blessing to others.
As
you see, in verse 19 of the passage, Abraham could eventually return to
having what he had to leave for the Lord's command and everything that
had been scattered in his life was returned to him because he had passed
the test of his will to obey the Lord, whether he understood the mandate or
not.
So,
know that when God asks us to "kill" our promise (leave it aside, get
away from it or let go), he is testing us to see if we worship the
promise more than Him. He also has multiplication and greater
blessings in mind for us that will help us achieve the greater works
that Jesus promised we would do on earth more than He did. This will
also help us develop and increase the ability to be influential in
others for the Kingdom of God. Remember, our job is not to understand
the reason for the mandate, but to obey the mandate. To him alone be
all the glory. ▪
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