A series preparing hearts for Easter… (Day 2)
We pause to listen to His Word, linger, lift up voice in prayer…then go live the Word.
Perhaps gather family to join, cutting out the accompanying artwork and hang symbol on an Easter Passion Tree?
Listen to the Word :
From the Message:
Gen.22: 1-14
1 After all this, God tested Abraham. God said, “Abraham!”"Yes?” answered Abraham. “I’m listening.”
2 He said, “Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I’ll point out to you.”
3-5 Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants and his son Isaac. He had split wood for the burnt offering. He set out for the place God had directed him. On the third day he looked up and saw the place in the distance. Abraham told his two young servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you.”
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to Isaac his son to carry. He carried the flint and the knife. The two of them went off together.
7 Isaac said to Abraham his father, “Father?”
“Yes, my son.”
“We have flint and wood, but where’s the sheep for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham said, “Son, God will see to it that there’s a sheep for the burnt offering.” And they kept on walking together.
9-10 They arrived at the place to which God had directed him. Abraham built an altar. He laid out the wood. Then he tied up Isaac and laid him on the wood. Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son.
11 Just then an angel of God called to him out of Heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
12 “Don’t lay a hand on that boy! Don’t touch him! Now I know how fearlessly you fear God; you didn’t hesitate to place your son, your dear son, on the altar for me.”
13 Abraham looked up. He saw a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. Abraham took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
14 Abraham named that place God-Yireh (God-Sees-to-It). That’s where we get the saying, “On the mountain of God, he sees to it.”
Linger …silently meditate on the Word:
Abraham said, “Son, God will see to it that there’s a sheep for the burnt offering.”… Abraham named that place God-Yireh (God-Sees-to-It).
(Join children in closing eyes and envisioning the passage…linger.)
Lift up voice in prayer, responding to the Word:
Father, You see-to-it. Whatever “it” is.
You always have a ram in the thicket. Even when “it” is the transformation, the destination of my soul.
Even if the ram in the thicket is Your Only Beloved Son.
We fearlessly fear you, our Jehovah Jireh, for being our Provider, the One Who sees to “it”— everything.
For really, what is there then to fear?
Live the Word (contemplate it so long that it settles down into heart, hands, feet):
Today, live in trust, knowing He will see-to-it. All of “it.” If He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things (Ro. 8:32)?
Today, what worry, fear, anxiety can we lay down? We choose to walk in faith, knowing that there is a Ram in the thicket. And His name is Jesus.
Print, mount, cut, hang art symbol on Easter Tree
