Faith Like That - Abraham

Yesterday I started a series called, "Faith Like That." Our thoughts today will be based on the passage of Scripture found in Genesis 22.
Today I want you to imagine you are a young man named Isaac. You’re packing up for a journey with your father. He’s going to make a sacrafice to God, and you're going with him. You love these trips. God has always been good to your family. You've heard your parent’s stories about how you were the child God had promised them. You were a miracle. Yes, you believed God deserved your praise. You're ready before anyone else. Finally you start on the journey, and as you are travelling you begin to take inventory. There’s the wood and there’s the kindling for the fire. There are the weapons to kill the lamb, and there are the ropes to tie the lamb to the altar. Something is missing though, where is the lamb? Maybe father is planning to find a lamb closer to the land of Moriah, you think. You travel on and think nothing more about it.
Several days later you have almost reached Mount Moriah. You hear your father tell the servants to camp out there, and you and he will go on to the mountain to worship God. He comes your way, and tells you to prepare for the climb.
Suddenly, you remember the lamb. Your father forgot the lamb. You know he’s getting older, but how could he forget the most important part of the sacrafice? You think on this for a while, trying to think of how you can bring it up. You don’t want to make your father look foolish, after all you look up to him. Finally you decide to just ask him.
“Father, we have everything here for a sacrafice, but we don’t have a lamb. Where is the lamb?”
“Don’t worry my son, God will provide Himself a lamb.” He says in barely a whisper. You think you might here the slightest crack in his voice as if he might be about to cry.
You dismiss it as tiredness. After all he was climbing a mountain, and he wasn’t a young man. You start to think of how proud you are of your father. He has such faith in God. He knew that there would be a lamb there to sacrafice, sent by God Himself.
You finally reach the top of the mountain. You lay your burden down and start to help your father in preparing an altar. You glance around, no lamb to be seen, but surely God would provide a lamb at the necessary time. Everything is now in order, and your father turns to you.
This time there is no mistaking it, there are tears in his eyes. “Son,” he says. “God has commanded that you be the sacrafice. I don’t know why, but I must obey Him.”
“Are you sure, father? Is this truly the will of God?”
“Yes, son, there is no other way. This is God’s will.”
“If you are sure, father, I will lay down my life.”
You prepare to lay down on the altar of sacrafice. You think this must be a mistake, a nightmare. Surely this isn’t what God wants, but from the look in your father’s eyes. You know this is God’s will.
You lay there for what seems like years waiting. Your father finally comes. He looks at you with tears on his cheeks. He tells you he loves you, and he raises the knife above his head. You close your eyes, trying to prepare yourself for the coming pain, but it never comes. You open your eyes to peek around. You hear a voice telling your father that sacraficing you is not necessary. God has provided a ram. You look around at the sound of a rustle in the nearby bushes. Sure enough, there sits a ram, a perfect ram, one fit to be sacraficed to God.
You and your father prepare the ram to be sacraficed. You are both crying tears of joy. This is the day that you have learned what it means to sacrafice everything to God, and you have learned the joy that you feel when God provides for you when you are willing to sacrafice.
Would you have liked to have been Isaac? Would you have readily laid down your life at your father’s command? Isaac had faith because he saw the faith of his father. He knew that Abraham knew the one true God, and Isaac trusted fully in his father’s word because he knew that those words came from God. How willing are we to listen to the words of God?
The question is, do you have a strong enough faith that others are willing to follow your example? Is your faith believable? Is it something that others lean on? I don't know about you, but that is the kind of faith I want. Faith like Abraham's where I am willing to sacrafice everything to God. Faith that others know if the real deal! How about you?

Faith Like That - David

Today I'm going to start a series called "Faith Like That." I'll be looking at some of the heroes of the faith in a bit of a different angle. I'm going to look at their lives from the perspective of those around them. Imagine what you would have thought had you seen some of these faith heroes in action. Today we're going to take a look at David's battle with Goliath. (found in I Samuel 17.)
Imagine that you’re one of David’s brothers. He comes up to you with provisions from home, and like the pesky little brother he is he starts to pester you with questions.
“How’s the battle going, guys? Are the Israelites winning? Have you met King Saul?”
“Of course I’ve met Saul,” you might say, “Anybody who is anybody has met Saul.”
“I hope I get to meet Saul one day.”
“You’re just a kid, David! What would Saul want to meet you for?” you answer him.
All of the sudden while you are talking, Goliath comes on the scene to make his challenge. “Come on, you Israelites. Isn’t one of you brave enough to face me? Out of all of your mighty armies, isn’t there one?”
You try to hide your fear of Goliath from David, but it’s impossible. You are shaking all over. There is no way to beat the giant, not single-handedly. He’s too big, too strong, and too cruel. David starts talking again, and you try to listen to what he is saying.
“Who is this guy anyway? Doesn’t he know who he’s dealing with? Hasn’t he heard about the God that is on our side? Has he never heard about what God did for Moses against Pharoah or how Joshua destroyed Jericho without a weapon?”
Now this makes you mad. Your little twerp of a brother is over there talking big while you are scared to death. What does he know anyway? you think. He’s just a kid, just a little shepherd. He knows nothing about battle.
“Get on home, David. You’re only here to see some action. You need to get back home to your sheep!”
“Why are you mad at me, brother? Father sent me here. Is there really no one who will fight this godless Philistine?”
You choose to ignore him. He doesn’t understand, and maybe if you ignore him long enough he’ll be quiet and go home. Several minutes later you turn to find that David is gone. Finally! You think to yourself. You hunker down in your trench more, as you listen to Goliath rail on and on for several minutes. How long would this Philistine make challenges before he charged the camp backed by thousands of other Philistines? How long would you be sitting here in fear for your life. You sit for a long while until suddenly there is a stir in the crowd. Word finally reaches you, someone is going to face Goliath.
What kind of crazy man would face this giant? He will surely die. It’s suicide, you think.
You turn to see your other brothers running towards you as you try to get a glimpse of the poor mindless fellow that has decided to lose his life to look brave.
“Do you recognize who that is?” One asks.
“No, I can’t really see him yet.” You say.
“It’s David, that’s who it is. We were near Saul’s quarters, and we saw David charge in there and say that he would accept Goliath’s challenge. He’s going to die!”
“What in the world would make him do such an insane thing?” You ask of them.
Neither of them answer you, then your attention is drawn away. The giant is laughing, bent over double. Saying, “Is this your mighty man? Don’t mock me. He’s only a child!”
“Great, not only is our brother going to be dead, but we are going to be the laughing stock of the entire army,” you tell your brothers.
David was talking to the giant now. You couldn’t hear him, but he sure wasn’t making that giant happy! Suddenly Goliath starts to charge, and you cover your eyes, not able to bear the sight of your brother being slain by the giant. Then you hear those around you begin to cheer! You peek between your fingers to see what in the world is going on. Goliath is on the ground, and David is on the giant’s chest, proclaiming the victory of the Lord God Almighty.
You join the cheers, and you run with those around you to capture the retreating Philistines. All the time, you are thinking, why wasn’t my faith so strong?
Have you ever been like one of David’s brothers. You don’t hear much about them in the Bible, you only see that they were passed over in God’s choice for king and that they were too afraid to face Goliath. Not much of a legacy is it?
What made the difference? They were all raised by the same parents. They shared the same chores. What made David so special that God chose him as the future king of Israel? What gave him the courage to stand before Goliath?
The answer is simple. He had a true relationship with God. He trusted God for everything. If a bear or a wolf or a lion came into his fields to try to attack his sheep, he trusted God to give him the strength to come against them. He had learned to trust God in the small things of daily life, and when the big test came, He passed with flying colors. His faith in God won the battle that day.
Do you have a true relationship with God. Are you trusting in the God that you've heard about over and over. Or are you sitting back thinking, "There is no way God can overcome THIS giant"? Well, let me tell you, if you have faith God can help you overcome every problem, great or small. You just have to remember what kind of God you're trusting in!