“So Abraham called the name of that place, ‘The Lord will provide;’ as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’” – Genesis 22:14

Scripture reading: 2 Chronicles 3:1

God guarantees Abraham that He will bless the nations through the church when it lives in His presence in the Spirit through faith by being receptive to His voice, open to His provision and available to the leading of the Spirit. This guarantee was not fulfilled in the Old Testament because Abraham’s descendants wanted to be like the nations.

Israel failed to be a blessing for the world, but God sent His Son to do what Israel failed to do. With the sacrifice of His life and the sacrifice of His death, the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly reflected the glorious presence of His heavenly Father and lived for the other by being a person where heaven and earth meet. In Him, all the families of the earth are blessed when they are joined to Him by faith because the Holy Spirit enables them to live for the other by becoming people where heaven and earth meet and God’s mission for His glory is worked out in and through them.

II Chronicles 3 links the place where Abraham sacrificed a ram instead of Isaac to Mount Zion where later the temple was built. This links the ram that was sacrificed as a substitute for Isaac to the Lord Jesus Christ as our substitute. This gives a deep meaning to the name Abraham gave to this place: the LORD will provide. The ram pointed to Him because in Him God provided the church with the One Who would enable it to succeed in reaching the goal of His creation.

Suggestions for prayer

Ask your heavenly Father to enable you to daily live in His presence by living in Christ through the Holy Spirit by faith.

Rev. Dick Moes is pastor emeritus of the Surrey Covenant Reformed Church in Surrey, BC. He and his wife Elsina have five children and 14 grandchildren.