Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings in the morning, dear ones.

At least it’s morning here as I send this. It’s still dark. I may be able to break away for a jog. Becki is very busy in the house with two little active boys who were delivered here last evening…so she can’t go.

Lots to get done today…before night comes…and the morning-day-night cycle is repeated all over again. Without a sense of purpose and direction that I think is best defined by A HEART AFTER GOD, the whole cycle could get kind of boring…even depressing.

There is some real difficulty in settling for such a short composition from these three chapters in Genesis. I’m having to bite my lip (fingers?) to keep from spinning off all over the place. I guess I would hope you have the same problem.

May your day be overshadowed by purpose—HIS purposes.

Love, Dad/Ray

This has to be one of the most emotion-wrenching stories of the Bible—God requiring Abraham to offer his only begotten son on an altar of sacrifice as a substitute for the sacrificial lamb. My own emotions are being wrenched, and the Kleenex box is being consumed, just reading the account again, reconnecting vital dots, and sensing a personal revival of my own reasonable trust in Jehovah-Jireh—THE LORD WHO PROVIDES.

One of the great lessons to be drawn from the account is this: GOD WANTS EVEN WHAT YOU LOVE MOST ON THE ALTAR OF SACRIFICE TO HIM. This becomes an amazing secret recipe for winning His blessing and special provisions. It’s another way to define A HEART AFTER GOD. And what do most humans typically love most? Themselves. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual (“reasonable,” KJV) act of worship” (Romans 12:1).