WHEN PRAISE DEMANDS A SACRIFICE

Before you can Sacrifice something you have to love it

Now this works both ways:

You can love something that is good and righteous

or you can love something that is purely evil

How can you sacrifice something if you don’t have love for it?

In the case of Abraham, he loved Isaac with all his heart and mind and he knew that if was, “a gift from God.”

To offer Isaac as an offering to God was a a psychological predicament.

If he doesn’t do what God has asked, then Abraham lacks faith and becomes a disobedient patriarch.

If Abraham carries out what God has commanded, his Son, and son will be murdered by him.

in today’s legal system he would be sentenced to die by lethal injection.

What was at play?

Spurgeon says that faith is based upon (3) things:

Knowledge...

Romans 10:14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? and… What else does Paul say?

Roman 10:17: So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Most of us want to be informed of a fact before we believe it,

How can you praise God if you don’t know why. And certainly you sacrifice yourself for whom you have no knowledge of?

Belief...

Once you have Knowledge about something your mind will go on to believe that it is true.

The New King James Version Chapter 5

13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

...and Trust.

Things that you don’t love you rarely miss

Before you can sacrifice you have to be devoted to it

Love demands devotion

and devotion means time-in to care for what you love

Before you can sacrifice some inner tension must exist

when you love something are devoted to it if there is no feeling of anxiety to depart with it—it cannot be love and therefore you were falsely devoted to it

It’s like this: I had a car I called the Brown Bomber. It took it’s last breath at 350,000 mile; all original mile from purchase. I took care of it. I was devoted to it; and when it came time for to let it go anxiety came upon me. I had to have time with and said to the car you will be in a BETTER PLACE where you will live on in something else.

God wanted to know that Abraham loved Him with all his mind and soul. God wanted to know was Abraham all-in with devotion. And God wanted Abraham to feel the anxiety of separation.