The Holiest of All By Andrew Murray

tboUest of Bll 449
CV.
FAITH COUNTING ON THE POWER OF GOD.
XI. 17. By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac :
yea, he that
had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten son;
18. Even he to whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called:
19. Accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead from
;
whence he did also in a parable receive him back.
As the characteristic of Abraham s faith we have here again
the great word offering. Abel offered ;
Christ offered Him
self; Abraham offered his only begotten, and, in doing so,
himself too. In some shape or other intercourse with God,
the life of faith, always means sacrifice. In a sinful world there
out of the sinful
is no way of drawing nigh to God, of coming
nature, but by dying to it, and receiving a new life from God
Himself, or rather by God giving His own life into the dead
one to raise it again. There is no way to God but by giving up
our own life, and what is as dear as life, unto death.
This sacrifice is
only possible to faith. The faith that has
seen and embraced the promise, that knows God as the living
and life-giving God, and that dares claim and count upon His
power to do to me what He has spoken,
is the faith that has
the courage for the altar and the knife arid the fire. God s
great object in leading His people in the path of faith is to
train them for ever larger sacrifice. It was a sacrifice of all he
held dear when Abraham left his kindred and his father s home.
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