Skip to main content

There Should Be Something You Would Not Do For Your Kids


   I've yet to meet the parent, myself included, that didn’t have a blind spot when it came to their little ones.  We think they are the most special perfect things that ever walked the planet.  Go to any little league game, kindergarten graduation or school recital and ask whose kid is the talented one is and everyone will raise their hands.  The only way the kid might make a catch is if the ball bounces off his head into his glove, but their parents will still see an all-star.  We love them too much for anything less.

   So then, parents tend to go overboard when it comes to their children. We decorate our walls with pictures of them, brag about them to anyone who will (and some who won't) listen and are willing to do anything for them.  Sacrifice time, money, self, and all reason for them.  That’s what good parent do.  To ask a loving good parent to give up their kids would ludicrous.

  But that's exactly what God does.

   Wait, a loving God wouldn't ask us to sacrifice children, would He? Then again, that is exactly what he did with Abraham.
He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."
Genesis 22:2
  Now God wasn't interested in the sacrifice as much as he was in seeing if Abraham was willing to do it.  Could the man that believed God’s unlikely promises still believe when it appeared God was about to take those promises away?  Abraham was willing to do just that, give up his son for his God.

 Yeah, I know what you're thinking, that was Abraham, from the Old Testament, God today wants me to raise my kids right, bring them up in the Lord, show them love and care.  That's all true. He wants you to love your kids but he wants you to love him more!  Jesus said just as much in Matthew 10:37,  "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me”.  To be his disciple means that our families can’t be the most important thing in our lives, it has to be God (Luke 14:26)

  It might be hard for us to conceive the how or why it might happen, but that doesn't
negate that we must be willing to give up even the most precious person to us for God.  That kind of sacrifice is unbelievable. How could God ask us to do that?


  Well, it was exactly what He was willing to do for us.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Until Midnight

    In Acts 20, there is the tragicomic event surrounding a young man by the name of Eutychus. He did what a lot of folks before and after him did, he fell asleep during a sermon. Unfortunately, he was setting in in the third story window at the time. So instead of nodding off and hitting the pew in front of him, he fell to his death. The good news was the apostle Paul was delivering the sermon and had the ability to bring him back.       I don’t know, however, if we can judge Eutychus too harshly. The sermon had gone on till midnight. Paul wouldn’t finish it up till daybreak. That’s a long lesson. I know some folks that might want to jump out of a window if I had a lesson that long, yet these Christians wanted to be there to hear Paul.   Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for all night sermons but I think we might need to adopt these folks' dedication. They knew that Paul was only in town for a limited time only and they were determined to ...

The Right to Arm Bears

  In the book of 2 nd Kings 2, we have one of the most unusual, violent and curious passages in scripture. It involves the prophet Elisha siccing a couple of bears on some kids that were mocking his bald head.    As a guy that is a little light on top that has been around some surly kids, I can feel for the guy. But seriously a bear attack? On kids? What is going on? ….young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!"  When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. 2 nd Kings 2:23-25  It might help to explore the passage a bit more. The baldhead statement: This was an identifying mark of the prophet as opposed to Elijah who was hairy (1st Kings 1:8) a jab to say you are not him. The taunt to go up: Elijah has just been taken into heaven by the Lord a sight seen by ...

The Mighty Gulf

  It is hard to get people on two sides of an issue to come together. Each has their own viewpoint, their perceptive, their own foibles, their own understanding.  To gain any common ground there must be something in common. Something or someone that can bridge the gulf between the two.   Could there be a greater gulf than there was between God and man? How could a holy perfect God find a way to connect to the fallen, imperfect mankind? How can one without temptation connect to those who are beset by it? How could limited mortal beings understand an omnipotent eternal God?   In 1 Timothy 2:5, we read, “ For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus .” The phrase mediator here describes a person that bridges the gap, a go-between. Jesus was one who could stand in both worlds. A perfect holy one who can understand our temptations, a man who would die yet live eternally, One who was God yet became flesh and dwelt among us. ...