By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

Faith sacrifices.

It was one of those moments you don’t forget. It is etched on my memory. I was sitting in a morning Bible study, in the big top at ‘Spring Harvest’, a Christian festival. This was many years ago and I was a young man in my early 20’s. The speaker was talking about Abraham and Isaac. ‘God never wanted Isaac,’ he said. ‘He wanted Abraham; and when He knew He’d got him, He gave Isaac back!’ That resonated with me, and it’s a principle I’ve seen work out in my own experience more than once through the years.

Faith sacrifices, and sometimes has to be willing to sacrifice its very best.

But faith also believes in the God of resurrection, and He has remarkable ways of bringing back from death what we place on the altar. It doesn’t always happen, and, at the front end, we have to sincerely let go of anything God is asking of us, being prepared to sacrifice it all. However, in the purposes of God, ‘Isaacs’ often make a come-back.