Parents: Give Your Children To God So You Can Have Them Forever!

PARENTS: Give Your Children to God so You can have them Forever!

(Genesis 22 with Romans 12:1-2)

Imagine yourself having been intrusted with the greatest gift in all of history: and then loosing it! Wow that would be a scary thought. But did you know that Mary and Joseph actually "lost" Jesus, the Savior of the World? In Luke 2:43-45 we read how they had lost him in Jerusalem! How fortunate for all humanity they only lost him for a short time. As tragic as it is that we could loose our children for a while, how great would the tragedy be if we lost our child or children for all eternity? But by God’s grace made available to us by faith, no parent ever has to experience that tragedy if they will learn the lessons of faith and parenting God is trying to teach us through this amazing event in the life of Abraham and Isaac. This passage of Abraham offering up his only son in sacrifice to God has proven to be one of the most troublesome in all of scripture to many people. Who wouldn’t ask, "How could a good God require Abraham to offer up his own son in sacrifice."

However, it is impoartant to realize that Abraham himself saw nothing wrong with this test of his faith. If we knew what Abraham knew, and if we had faith like Abraham had faith, (and we are supposed too – Rom. 4:12), then this test of faith would not be troublesome to us, but a life saving inspiration to us. It would cause us to cry out in prayer: “O LORD, make me a father of faith like Abraham!”

You see this was a test of faith for which God had been preparing Abraham for many years. And this was a test for which Abraham had prepared himself by his faithful continual obedience to the revealed Word of God.

For someone who doesn’t hear the Word of God, and doesn’t have a promise from God about their family,

we can understand how Abraham offering up Isaac as a burnt offering to God, would be shocking and seem to be morally questionable.

But Abraham didn’t see it that way at all and neither should we. In fact, if Abraham was here today and saw what the average parent is doing with their children, He would be shocked at us and justly accuse us of being morally unfit as parents.

You see Abraham knew for sure without a doubt that His son would be given back to him alive and they would spend eternity together in God’s promised land (Heb. 11:19; Rom. 4:20-21; “everlasting covenant” Gen. 17:7-8). Many parents today do not know for sure without a doubt if they will get to spend eternity with their children. If you are a parent in that situation then read on for you are about to learn the best news a parent could know!

Parents are always making great sacrifices for their children. This every parent is well aware of. But what most parents don’t realize is that we are all offering up our children as living sacrifices! The important question becomes, “To who or what are we sacrificing our children?"

Most parents end up offering their children up in sacrifice to the world on its altars of self, wealth, education, lust and pride. On these altars of temporal values, the sacrifice is eventually totally consumed never to be seen or heard of again. (I John 2:16-17)

But then there are those parents of faith like Abraham who learn to offer up their children on the altars of faith to the one true Eternal God. Like Abraham they realize their children are a gift from God and really belong to Him (Ps. 127:3). We are just stewards. And some day the owner will come back and demand an accounting of how well we have done in our stewardship (Matt. 18:5-6). Like Mary and Joseph we are entrusted to take care of these precious little lives until their real father calls them into His service. (Luke 2:49)

The question we will all be challenged with as we study Genesis 22 is: “To whom or what are we offering up our children?" "Who will they spend their lives serving?" Self, Satan, or the World? Or will they spend their lives serving the one True Eternal God who created us all? Will we end up kidnapping God’s children to fulfill our temporary selfish purposes or will we surrender them into God’s custody to fulfill His glorious eternal purposes?

Will you have the blessing of eternal fellowship with your children in the joys of heavenly sinless perfection? Or will you just have the blessing of their presence a few short earthly years never to see them again? The answer depends on "to whom or what are you offering up your children in sacrifice?"