Daily Affirmations - Day 5 - Carrying The Cross - The Hill of Sacrifice
Day 5: The hill of sacrifice
But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” He said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from Me your son, your only son” (Genesis 22:12).
There are times with us when we are called to a course of action which looks as though it would jeopardise our highest hopes. A true follower of Jesus... is sometimes bound by duty to perform an action which, to all appearance, will destroy future usefulness.
I have often heard [people] urge as a plea for remaining in a corrupt or compromising situation, that they have obtained an influence in its midst... They might lose [their position] if they followed their conscience and were true to God.
But God calls us to lose all our supposed influence and renounce our apparent advantage rather than commit the least trespass upon our conscience. Such was the difficult choice Abraham made in offering up Isaac, in whom all the promises of God were centered.
It is neither your business nor mine to fulfil God’s promise, nor to do the least wrong to produce the greatest good. To do evil that good may come is false morality, and wicked policy. For us is duty, for God is the fulfilment of His own promise, and the preservation of our usefulness.
Though He dash my reputation into shivers, and cast my usefulness to the four winds, yet if duty calls me, I must not hesitate a single second, for in that hesitation I shall be disobedient to my God. At the command of God, Isaac must be offered, though the heavens fall.
Faith must answer all [doubt] by the assurance that what God ordains can never, in its ultimate issue, produce anything but good; obedience can never endanger blessings, for God's commands are never in real conflict with His promises. God can raise up Isaac and fulfil His own decree.
~ C.H. Spurgeon, Mature Faith— Illustrated by Abraham’s Offering Up Isaac
(some language edited for clarity)
Father of Love, our Guide and Friend,
O lead us gently on,
Until life's trial-time shall end,
And heavenly peace be won.
We know not what the path may be
As yet by us untrod;
But we can trust our all to Thee,
Our Father and Our God.
If called, like Abraham's child, to climb
The hill of sacrifice,
Some angel may be there in time;
Deliverance shall arise;
Or if some darker lot be good,
O teach us to endure
The sorrow, pain, or solitude,
That makes the spirit pure.
Christ by no flowery pathway came;
And we, His followers here,
Must do Thy will and praise Thy name,
In hope, and love, and fear.
And, till in heaven we sinless bow,
And faultless anthems raise,
O Father, Son, and Spirit now
Accept our feeble praise. Amen.
~ William J. Irons, 1844
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