When Abraham Preferred God to the Life of his Son, Part 2 (Fasting Edition #155)

Our fasting quote of encouragement today is from Donald Whitney. He said: “Like all the Spiritual Disciplines, fasting hoists the sails of the soul in hopes of experiencing the gracious wind of God’s Spirit. But fasting also adds a unique dimension to your spiritual life and helps you grow in Christlikeness in ways that are unavailable through any other means. If this were not so, there would have been no need for Jesus to model and teach fasting.”

Our fasting devotional today is titled “WHEN ABRAHAM PREFERRED GOD TO THE LIFE OF HIS SON” (Part 2) from John Piper, author of the bestselling book “A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer”.

Why would God call for such a thing from Abraham? Because it was a test. Does Abraham delight in the fear of the Lord more than he delights in his own son? God spoke through the angel: “Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” These words, “now I know”—what do they mean?...

“[I am concerned with the question] ‘If God is omniscient he must have known what Abraham would do, without any experiment; why, then, this needless torture?’ But as St. Augustine points out, whatever God knew, Abraham at any rate did not know that this obedience would endure such a command until the event taught him; and the obedience which he did not know that he would choose, he cannot be said to have chosen///

...A real lived-out human act of preference for God over his gifts is the actual lived-out glorification of God’s excellence for which he created the world. Fasting is not the only way, or the main way, that we glorify God in preferring him above his gifts. But it is one way. And it is a way that can serve all the others.