I’m in that place where my Promise is ALSO the Sacrifice! The very thing that God has spoken and granted to me as the symbol of destiny, legacy, covenant, and reward is also the thing that He requires that I place on the altar for MURDER! LOL (Just felt good to scream that out.)

Ever noticed, looking from a different vantage point, that the best thing about you can be the worst thing about you. I mean the teacher celebrates you because you participate and engage in class, but she calls your mom because you talk too much in class! Your friends love you because you (hate this phrase) KEEP IT REAL, but they won’t be your friends because you kept it real about them and told too much truth! She loves him because he’s spontaneous, unpredictable, and surprising; she’s divorcing him because he doesn’t plan, doesn’t prepare, always doing stuff at the last minute and is always changing something! You get my point huh?

So the need becomes taking the best thing about us and also harnessing its energy in the service and submission to others and for the ULTIMATE glory of the purposes of God and His Kingdom.

How do I activate and run with this burning passion in me to become great, significant and BLESS the lives of others and yet still be distant enough to count it as dung and as nothing for the excellency of knowing Him?

How do I take the dreams that I’ve prayed for and been divinely inspired by and sell all I have like the rich young ruler was invited to do, in order to follow Christ? “I mean God shall I pursue and recover all or shall I just sit back and let you get this one?” David asked the Lord. Here’s one you might not admit: Lord you gave me all this sensuality, body parts and hormones AND a pair of eyes to match, but then tell me to WAIT FOR MARRIAGE! LOL Yall don’t want to admit none of that do you?

How does God take His only son that He gave to the world, showcase Him, and glorify Him only to lead Him to ridicule, betrayal, and death on the cross!

This led me into the narrative of Abraham and Isaac with some imaginative speculation. Here’s what I’m envisioning: Isaac at some point had to start getting extremely suspicious. Especially, at the point he prompts his father, “Ur rum, brother,Father Abraham you got a knife, gasoline, and rope, salt, pepper and Hot Sauce (everybody brings hot sauce) the makings of a great camp side fire and meal–but ur rum I don’t see the sacrifice. Am I missing something?”

I mean who’d-a-thunk-it: Going to worship means that something has to be sacrificed and it just may be the thing you’ve been hoping for all your life. All of it thrown to the fire in desperate, unrequited love to Jesus. We usually skip off to worship with the expectation of meeting the man who fulfills our dreams, not the one who takes a knife to the promise!

Obviously, when Isaac was in the habit of going to worship with his father, Abraham would have all of these details well planned and thought out and more than likely brought the sacrifice with them on the way. This time is a little different, but HE TRUSTS his father. God give us Fathers that we can trust that when they say God will provide the sacrifice for Himself that we can continue on the journey in Faith! Give us voices we can trust. Father let us hear your voice say, we’ll be back. I will provide!

My next speculation pops out @ Genesis 22:9 He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.-WOW Did you read? Isaac didn’t just lay down on the wood. Abraham had to take his precious hope and dream and BIND it up, tie it down, subdue it.

Because guess what, there’s a temptation for us to not fully commit the sacrifice to the point of death and sometimes we excuse what’s in us, that’s supposed to die because it’s attached to the promise. We let him pop up off the altar.

Isaac didn’t just lay down to die.  Your PROMISE/SACRIFICE has a fight in it: some resistance to submission and  it fears becoming extinct and insignificant. Afraid you won’t have an opportunity. Afraid you’ll miss the moment. Afraid that you will be left holding the bag while everyone else goes on to be wonderful and highly accomplished.

And it will contend and struggle with you when you say to it: Dream, hope for marriage, hope for children, expectation for wealth you MUST serve the purposes of God before you ever serve who I can become!

Sure I’m supposed to become and accomplish (YOU fill in the blank________________) but if El Shaddai, El Elyon recalls YOU, then you must- because you were not mine in the first place. What I  possess is for His glory ultimately. This is the essence of “Nevertheless, not my will but thy will be done.” There’s the victory of Calvary for Jesus: Death to self-ambition and all rights and claims to self-efficacy and self-protection. If there’s to be any fruitfullness, God is responsible for it.

So we do what we must to harness the ambition and the hope in the effort of bringing God ultimate satisfaction so that he will know that we FEAR HIM and we would not withhold anything from Him. And much like Abraham’s revelation we have to believe in a RESURRECTION if necessary! In Abraham’s Case, Isaac did not need a resurrection. In the case of Cory Bradley and all of us concerning God’s son Jesus, Christ- WE did: We needed His resurrection! And what power lies in that resurrection. Subdue Isaac friends; let your dream know that it’s not beyond sacrifice and should that be the fire burning on the altar of my heart-I will release the sweet-smelling savor to my God over and over again. You have me, you have my heart completely.

Check this song out: (GUNGOR BAND: You have me!)