October 12, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“When they reached the place God had shone him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!‘ ‘Here I am,’ he replied.” (Genesis 22.9-11)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

The Apostle Paul wrote in his apostolic letter to the Christ followers of Rome, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10.9-10)

Sometimes, some people get this wrong in the Church and in their theology. In their desire to magnify Jesus as the Christ, they misspeak the words concerning His resurrection so that it sounds as if “Jesus raised Himself from the dead.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The gospel writers want all believers to clearly understand the magnitude and completeness of the death of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross. The evidence is clear both physically and spiritually that when Jesus died, He was dead and emptied of all life. The puncture of the Centurion’s spear drew more pulse than blood from His lung. The heart had stopped. His lungs were filled with fluid. He drowned. A strange fate for one who walked on water, calmed the seas, called His disciples to be “fishers” of humanity (especially men) and drank fully from the cup which God presented Him. Of course, we know of the horror of his life in the hours preceding His death. There were punches to the body and face along with slaps and spital. Some of His Jewish brothers claiming to be of God’s righteousness as Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees, Priests and Elders of the Land may in the determination to humble Christ by showing their vehement displeasure may have hit Him so hard that His ribs might have cracked. We remember the prophecy, however, “no bones were broken,” (Psalm 34.20) but that doesn’t mean they were violently bruised and pushed to their human limit. He was led by chains and shackles as a dangerous and violent criminal. He was given 39 lashes of the cruelest and most debilitating whip- the cat ‘o nine tails. His flesh was ribbed from His body. His vital organs were exposed. His torso and back were shredded. He was paraded back and forth between Herod and Pilate bloodied and beaten. He had a crown of thorns thrust into His head piercing His skin to the bone and shaken to make sure it was in place. Then He carried the yoke of the cross up Golgotha’s hill as far as He could until He couldn’t. Reaching the brow of the hill, He was then nailed to the yoke and drug up the spine of the cross and dropped into place. With His feet pulled up and nailed to the spine, He had little ability to breathe. That facilitated the collection of fluid in His lungs.

What is often less highlighted is His surrendering His Spirit of life into His Father’s hands. When Jesus breathed His last, it was not merely His earthly, fleshly breath. Jesus breathed out the very Spirit that brought Him into the world with all its power and authority, wisdom and knowledge. His body became physically and spiritually dead. He truly represented every person who had not confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Only begotten Son of God as Lord and Savior. He was incapable of doing anything but die. He certainly could not create a miracle except to surrender His faith in love to the God of His heart, mind, body and soul. All of this to say, that Jesus could not raise Himself from the dead. He could not call Himself out of the tomb as He called Lazarus after four days dead. It was solely by the love and power of God’s faith which blessed Jesus with new life and restored Him to His unusual and unique existence bearing the marks of crucifixion from the world and the glory of God from Heaven.

Why am I stating these things this way? Because it could only be by God’s intervention to spare Isaac his life that the blessing of God could truly fall upon the generations of Abraham to come. Isaac was not Jesus. Sarah was not Mary. Abraham was not Joseph. A burnt offering was not a crucifixion. If Isaac had died, then the story would have changed fully and completely away from Abraham. That in and of itself is not bad because it puts the total focus on God except not full of glory. Isaac’s death would not have served God’s redemption plan for every human being even if they were not related to Abraham. Something else had to happen. It was God’s intervention, which did not happen on Golgotha for Jesus. Jesus had to die as every person must die- totally dependent on God without the promise of salvation. Works do not save. Only faith in God and by His mercy and grace are we saved as was Jesus from the grave. The passion foretold in the story of Abraham and Isaac is the truly good news. Oh, that the generations that followed Abraham would have understood it was not by works or a religion of works righteousness that fulfills the legacy of eternal life with our Father in Heaven. Even the remembrance of the substitutionary sacrifice was eventually forsaken and demeaned into a simple act lacking contrition. If not for Abraham’s faith in “God will provide,” could the promise be made holy and sacred, sanctified. Mighty ones of God, this is the lesson we must learn from Abraham and Isaac:

“Save for the grace of God, there go I.”

But because of God’s grace and mercy and love, we can say as Abraham did, “Here I am.“

TODAYS’ PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness endeavor, but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.