Providing the Lamb: A Holy Week Devotion

As a kid growing up in Sunday School, I was taught a lot of Bible stories. The teachers did their best to keep our attention on the application of the stories, but if I am being honest, the majority of the stuff I remember are just the stories themselves. One of them is the story of Abraham offering his son Isaac on the altar.

If you are unfamiliar with this story I would encourage you to read it in Genesis 22.

In verse 7, Isaac asked his dad while they were walking up Mt. Moriah, where the sacrifice was.
They had the wood and the supplies to make a fire, there were plenty of stones for the altar, there was rope... but... Where's the sacrifice?

Abraham replied that God would provide the Lamb.
But God didn't provide the Lamb.
Not on that day.
What does the story say?

'But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.” ' -Genesis 22:11-14 NIV

A ram. A ram stuck in a thicket... or a thorn bush.



The Lamb would come generations later.
The Lamb would come with a crown of thorns pounded on his head.
The Lamb would walk up the same mountain many, many years later, bearing wood on his back, just as Isaac did.
The Lamb would lay down his life, be bound to his altar, pierced with nails, and left to die.

The Lamb would be sacrificed.
But not on this day.

On this day, it was to be a ram.

Friends, this Holy Week, remember... God always provides. God always keeps His promises. God always is willing to do whatever it takes to show His people who He is.

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.
Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first.   - 1 John 4:7-19 NLT

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Nathan Bryant

is a pastor living in Phoenix, AZ. As a student at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri he majored in Biblical Leadership, New Testament Studies, and Missiology. Nathan has a combined passion for unity and discipleship in the global church.

Christ's Kingdom is bigger than our causes.

Christ's Kingdom is bigger than our boundaries.

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