# 193 Lay It Down At Mt. Moriah

The Book of Genesis

Day 193

Ge 22:1 Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 2 Then He said, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you."

I worked in contemporary Christian radio from 1988 until I retired last year, During that time there are certain songs that I have never forgotten. Derek Floyd’s Mt Moriah is one of them. The chorus has never left me: 

Lay it down at Mt. Moriah
Offer up what you hold best
Giving in complete surrender
That you may know God's faithfulness.

God is faithful whether we are or not. 2Ti 2:13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.But if we want to experience God’s faithfulness in a very real way, then we must be like Abraham and lay it all down on Mt Moriah!

In our text, God has decided to put Abraham to the test. The idea of the word “test” here is to test the quality of someone or something through a demonstration of stress. Abraham was about to be taken to the heavenly assayers office. He was going to find out what he was made of. God was about to bring “something to pass” in Abraham’s life that would measure his loyalty to God. In fact, the angel of the Lord explains the reason for this test in v12 after Abraham had successfully passed it. He said, “Now I know that you fear God.” To “know” in this instance is to ascertain by seeing. God tested Abraham  because He wanted to see if he really feared or revered Him. He wanted to see Abraham’s fear or reverence for Him break out into obedient action or works. As Jesus said in  Joh 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."

Our hearts can often deceive us. We say we have faith, we say we have “surrendered all” but if our faith remains bottled up in our hearts and not expressed, it is nothing but dead faith.  It is faith unseen by others and not experienced by ourselves. It’s like courtroom evidence presented in an envelope, but the envelope remains unopened and unobserved.

Faith must spill over into voluntary acts of obedience. Jesus also said, “If you love Me keep My commandments.”  So our faith tests come every time we come up against a commandment of God. Every time we have the option  to obey  or disregard an instruction from His Word.

You and I will be tested today. There will be a time when the stress of choice will arrive. We all have our own little Mt Moriah’s. Be prepared for them  when they  come. Purpose in your heart now to obey God.  In so doing you will demonstrate your love for Him, and if you fail the test, (and we all fail somewhere along the line) don’t despair. God has made provision for our failures. It is called the cross. If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

One more thing. These tests are for our benefit. God knows our heart, and in these tests He allows us to get a glimpse of where we are at in our walk of faith.

Pray: Father, thank You for the opportunities that You present us with every day to see where we are at in our relationship with You. Thank You for forgiving us when we fail.