Host: Good morning. This is The Pursuit of God Daily for Wednesday, October twenty-first. We continue in chapter two of The Pursuit of God, The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing, as Tozer turns to the story of Abraham and Isaac.

Reader: Hebrews eleven, verses seventeen through nineteen. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

Reader: From A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, chapter two, The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing. As is frequently true, this New Testament principle of spiritual life finds its best illustration in the Old Testament. In the story of Abraham and Isaac we have a dramatic picture of the surrendered life as well as an excellent commentary on the first Beatitude.

Reader: Abraham was old when Isaac was born, old enough indeed to have been his grandfather, and the child became at once the delight and idol of his heart. From that moment when he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms he was an eager love slave of his son. God went out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection. And it is not hard to understand. The baby represented everything sacred to his father’s heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream.

Reader: As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love.

Reader: “Take now thy son,” said God to Abraham, “thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” The sacred writer spares us a closeup of the agony that night on the slopes near Beersheba when the aged man had it out with his God, but respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars. Possibly not again until a Greater than Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul.

Reader: If only the man himself might have been allowed to die. That would have been easier a thousand times, for he was old now, and to die would have been no great ordeal for one who had walked so long with God. Besides, it would have been a last sweet pleasure to let his dimming vision rest upon the figure of his stalwart son who would live to carry on the Abrahamic line and fulfill in himself the promises of God made long before in Ur of the Chaldees.

Host: Notice what Tozer does not say. He does not say Abraham was wrong to love Isaac. The boy was a gift of God, born, as Genesis twenty-one tells us, at the set time of which God had spoken. Every hope Abraham held was wrapped up in that child. The danger was not the love itself. Tozer is saying the danger was the place that love had come to hold, until, in his words, the relationship bordered upon the perilous. That is a sobering thought for any of us, because the things most likely to crowd God from the center are not usually the obviously sinful things. They are the good things. A child. A marriage. A ministry. A calling we believe God Himself gave us. Abraham's Isaac represented the very promises of God, and still God would not share the throne of Abraham's heart with him. The Lord Jesus spoke just as plainly. In Matthew ten He said, He that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And the apostle John closes his first letter with a tender warning: Little children, keep yourselves from idols. But look at how God dealt with Abraham. Tozer calls it stepping in to save both father and son. God's command was severe, but His purpose was mercy. And the writer of Hebrews tells us Abraham went up that mountain trusting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead. On the way, when Isaac asked where the lamb was, Abraham answered, My son, God will provide himself a lamb. We know how that sentence was finally fulfilled. Tozer points us to the Garden of Gethsemane, and to a Father who did not spare His own Son, so that we would be spared. So here is something to carry into today. Ask the Lord quietly, what is my Isaac? What good gift have I begun to hold too tightly? You do not have to know the answer this morning. Simply name before God the people and blessings dearest to you, one by one, and say, these are Yours. Then go on loving them, but with an open hand.

Host: Heavenly Father, thank You for every good gift You have placed in our hands. Forgive us when we have loved the gift more than the Giver. Search our hearts, and gently loosen our grip on anything that has taken Your place. Teach us to trust You as Abraham did, and to rest in the Lamb You have provided, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Host: In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. Genesis twenty-two, verse fourteen. Go with God.