🦋Alaysia🦋

Satan answered the Lord, "I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that's going on."

Dear Heavenly Father,

Please forgive me for sinning before you once again and thank You for forgiving me once again.

Please keep my whole soul, mind and body blameless before Your coming so that i a can praise and serve You with all that I am.

Please increase my love for You because You love me unconditionally and want to be close to me.

~Psalm 23🐑

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You that Your Holy Spirit is in me, that my body is a holy temple. Let me therefore be pure for you and take well care of myself.

Let all that I do be for Your Glory because You alone are the worthy King.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Create in me a clean heart, renew a right Spirit within me. Make me pure and keep my body blameless before your coming.

May my eyes, may my hands and my whole body restrain from sin and instead long to be pure for You Father. May i keep Your temple clean and let the Holy Spirit find its dwelling place there.

May everything be for Your glory,

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~1 corinthians 6:19-20

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"Have you ever noticed that almost every children's Bible shows Isaac as a little boy? He's usually about six years old, looking completely confused while Abraham stands over him with a knife. It's a powerful picture...except that's probably not what happened.

The Bible never tells us Isaac's age, but it does give us clues. In Genesis 22, Isaac is called a na'ar, a Hebrew word that can describe a youth or a young man. Joseph is called a na'ar when he's seventeen years old, and the same word is even used for adult servants in other passages. Then add the fact that Isaac carried the wood for the burnt offering up the mountain himself. That wasn't a handful of kindling. Burnt offerings required a substantial amount of wood. Suddenly, this isn't the picture of a helpless little child. It's the picture of a strong young man. Maybe he was in his late teens. Maybe his twenties. Some Jewish traditions even place him at thirty-seven years old because of the timing of Sarah's death. We simply don't know for certain, but we know enough to realize he almost certainly wasn't a little boy.

Now stop and picture the scene again. Abraham is well over one hundred years old. Isaac is young, strong, and fully capable of carrying a heavy load of wood up a mountain. If Isaac had decided he wasn't interested in becoming a sacrifice that day, there is approximately a zero percent chance a man well over a century old was physically forcing him onto that altar. I don't care how tough Abraham was. At some point experience loses to youth. If Isaac wanted to leave, he was leaving.

Which means somewhere between carrying the wood, watching his father build the altar stone by stone, and realizing there still wasn't a sacrifice, Isaac understood exactly what was happening. He knew there wasn't another lamb coming. He was the offering.

And yet Scripture never records a struggle. No argument. No attempt to run. No, "Dad... I love you and all, but I think you've finally lost it." Instead, there is a silence that says far more than words ever could. Isaac willingly submitted to his father's will because he trusted his father, even when he couldn't possibly understand what God was doing.

Does that remind you of Someone else?

Nearly two thousand years later, another Son would carry wood up another mountain. Another Son would willingly submit to His Father's will. Another Son had every ability to stop what was happening. Jesus Himself said He could call on more than twelve legions of angels if He chose. The nails didn't keep Him on the cross. The Romans didn't keep Him on the cross. Love kept Him on the cross. He stayed because He chose to stay.

Then, just as Abraham raised the knife, God stopped him and provided a substitute. Not a lamb. A ram.

That detail isn't random. In Abraham's culture, a ram wasn't just another sheep. It was the mature male of the flock. It represented strength, leadership, and future generations. It was valuable. If you sacrificed a ram, you weren't just giving up one animal. You were giving up years of future offspring. This wasn't God providing the cheapest replacement He could find. He provided something costly.

Even the way the ram was caught matters. Genesis says it was caught by its horns in the thicket. Throughout Scripture, horns symbolize strength and power. The very thing that represented the ram's strength became the means by which it was held in place to become the substitute. Isaac climbed off the altar because another took his place.

And then the picture changes.

On Mount Moriah, God spared Abraham's son.

On Calvary, God did not spare His own.

There was no ram caught in the bushes for Jesus. No voice from heaven saying, "Stop." No substitute waiting at the last second.

Because Jesus was the substitute.

Isaac walked down the mountain alive because a ram died in his place. We get to walk away from our sin because Jesus died in ours. Suddenly Genesis 22 isn't just an incredible story about Abraham's faith. It's God painting a picture of the gospel nearly two thousand years before Jesus was born. Every step up the mountain. Every piece of wood. Every stone in that altar. Every question Isaac asked. Every moment of silence. Every one of them points to Christ.

And once you realize Isaac wasn't a terrified little boy being dragged where he didn't want to go, but a young man who willingly trusted his father enough to lay down on that altar...the story hits a whole lot differently.

It always pointed to Jesus. It always pointed to the Father who would one day give His own Son. And it always pointed to the Son who would willingly say, "Not My will, but Yours be done."

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!”

Psalm 70:4 May all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; may those who long for Your saving help always say, “The Lord is great!”

Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Jeremiah 9:24 “I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD.

Hebrews 13:5-6 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for [God] Himself has said, "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you," 6 so that we confidently say, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?"

Jeremiah 10:23 I know, O LORD, that a man's way is not in himself, nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.

1 Peter 3:3-4 …let not your adornment be merely external…4 but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

Today’s Leonine Cuteness brought to you straight from Kenya’s Masai Mara by #wildographer & author @seancranephoto. Prints & books: https://seancrane.com

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