Faith is required for us to experience the experience God has for us.

Some people insist on seeing some kind of sign before they will engage on what God wants them to do. In essence they are saying: “Lord, prove to me this is You, and then I will obey.” When Moses stood before the burning bush and received his invitation to join God in His great work, God promised to affirm the invitation in due time. He said, “This will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain” (Exod. 3:12).

God said, Moses, you obey, and I will deliver Israel through you. You will come to know Me as your deliverer, and you will stand on this mountain and worship Me.

God’s affirmation that He had sent Moses would come after Moses obeyed, not before. The affirmation comes after the obedience. When Jesus invited Peter to get out of the boat to walk on the water, He did not assure Peter he would stay afloat! The Lord simply said, “Come!” (Matt. 14:28). Peter wouldn’t know if he could walk on the water until he took his first step.

Experiencing God is Faith Based

Genesis 22:1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham; and he said, Here am I. 2And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom you love, even Isaac, 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 you.

Genesis 22:15–19 .

15And the angel of Jehovah called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said, By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, 17 that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; 18 and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

Abraham has reached the place where he is in touch with the very nature of God, he understands now the reality of God.

Is our goal, God Himself, At any cost, by any road?

At any cost, by any road’ means nothing self-chosen in the way God brings us to the goal.

There is no possibility of questioning when God speaks if He speaks to His own nature in me; prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, “Come,” I simply come; when He says, “Let go,” I let go; when he says, “Trust in God in this matter,” I do trust. The whole working out is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.

God’s revelation of Himself to me is determined by my character, not by God’s character.

By the discipline of obedience we get to the place where Abraham was, and we see Who God is. We never have a real God until we have come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ, then we know that “in all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee.”

The promises of God are of no value to us until by obedience we understand the nature of God. We read some things in the Bible three hundred and sixty-five times and they mean nothing to us; then all of a sudden we see what God means, because in some particular we have obeyed God, and instantly His nature is opened up. “All the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen.” The “yea” must be born of obedience; when by the obedience of our lives we say “Amen” to promise, then that promise is ours. Chambers

It takes faith to experience the experience God has for us.

A faith that cannot be tested cannot be trusted. If you can’t test it, how do you know it’s real? How do you know it is trustworthy?

How would you like to fly on an airplane that had not been tested? If you can’t test it, can you trust it? We don’t want to be the first to try something, and we don’t want to try something that’s not been tested.

God did not tempt Abraham to do something that was wrong.

“God tempts no man with evil.” (James 1:13)

If God were to tempt us, none of us would be able to withstand the temptation. “God tests or tempts no man with evil, and neither can God be tempted with evil.”

So what does this mean? It simply means that God was putting Abraham to the test. He was testing Abraham’s faith.

The devil tempts us to do wrong in order to cause us to stumble. God tests us to do right in order to cause us to stand. And what God is doing to Abraham is not trying to get Abraham to stumble, but to get Abraham to stand. And God is putting his faith to the test,

He remembers the time when he told Isaac about the covenant that God had made with him. And he thinks, “What will he say now? What will he think when I bind him to the altar? What will the look in his eyes be? What would it be like to place that knife into his bosom? What will his last words be?”

Faith Is Tested by the Amount of Its Devotion

Why did God say to Abraham, “Abraham, take your son, your only son whom you love, and offer him”?

God had seen that Abraham was in danger of loving Isaac more than he loved God Himself. Abraham was in danger of loving the gift more than the Giver. Abraham was in danger of loving the promise more than the One who had promised.

God will never willingly let anything take first place in your devotion other than God Himself.

God does not want a place in your life. God does not want prominence in your life. God desires, God deserves, and God demands preeminence in your life.

Does Almighty God have preeminence in your life?

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3)

No matter what God has given you, and no matter what God has done for you: Do you love what God has given you and what God has done for you more than the God who gave it to you?

It’s not that God doesn’t want us to love our sons. God wants us to love our sons. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to love the promises and the ministry that He’s given us. God wants us to love that. But none of these things can take first place in our lives.

Faith Is Tested by the Worth of the Sacrifice

what was in that sacrifice when he offered up Isaac. What was he doing? Well, he was sacrificing his future, because all of his hopes were in Isaac. God said to Abraham, “In Isaac will your future be. You’re going to be the father of many nations, but it’s all wrapped up in Isaac. You’re to be a great nation. I will give you a great name.” (Genesis 17:19) “And now,” he says, “take your future—take your future—and sacrifice it.” (Genesis 22:2)

Faith Is Tested by the Timing of your obedience.

the Bible tells us here that as soon as the command was given to sacrifice Isaac, immediately, the next morning, he rose up and went his way. Verse 3: “And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son.” (Genesis 22:3) No hesitation, no consultation—just simply, “God, you say it, and now I must obey.” Obedience is the greatest proof of devotion and the means of sacrifice.

Procrastination is a form of sin; it is a form of disobedience. Now so we must—we must—obey Him. It must be instant obedience.

Do we have faith to lay the dearest thing that we own at God’s feet? Do we have faith to sacrifice at any cost when God speaks to us?

Hebrews 11:17, and that’s the New Testament commentary on Genesis 22. And listen to what it says here. It says, “By faith Abraham, when he was tried,”—that is, “when he was tested”—“offered up Isaac.” (Hebrews 11:17)

Now it doesn’t say that he was only willing to offer. It says he “offered up Isaac.” From the time he left home, in Abraham’s mind, Isaac was as good as dead. In his heart and in his mind, he offered up Isaac. It was in the past tense. And what was he offering when he offered up Isaac? What was he sacrificing?

He was sacrificing his future, because God has said, “Abraham, I’m going to give you many descendants—a nation—and nations will come of you. And through you all the nations will be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1–3) And when he offered up Isaac, there went his future.

What would he tell Sarah, Isaac’s mother? What would he tell Isaac? What would he tell others? But his family could not come first. “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” (Matthew 10:37) the Lord Jesus said.

There were others who wouldn’t understand. There were others who wo uld say, “Abraham, you’ve done wrong. You ought not to do that. God doesn’t ask that of you. That’s too great a sacrifice.”

There will be people who don’t understand. There will be people who will hurt, and there will be tears. But, you see, my dear friend, faith is measured by the depth of its devotion. It is measured by the height of its obedience. It is measured by the length of the sacrifice. It will pay any price.

Genesis 22: 10: “And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God,”—here’s the key—“seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” (Genesis 22:10–12)