Devotional 24 July 2025

July 24, 2025 • Steve Torres

Hebrews 11:17.jpg

"By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back." (Hebrews 11:17-19, ESV)

The story of Abraham and Isaac is often remembered for its emotional intensity, a father raising the knife over his beloved son. Yet the author of Hebrews calls us to see something deeper: not the crisis of affection, but the clarity of faith. Abraham wasn’t acting blindly or irrationally. He was acting by reasoned trust in the character of God.

God had promised Abraham that through Isaac his descendants would come. So when God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, Abraham faced a crisis not of sentiment, but of theology. Would God contradict His own promise? Abraham answered that question in faith. He reasoned that if Isaac must live for the promise to be fulfilled, and God was commanding his death, then God would raise Isaac. He believed that God is always faithful to His word, even when His ways seem impossible to understand. Abraham obeyed not because he knew the plan, but because he knew the Promiser.

This is not blind faith, it is tested faith. And testing, as James says, produces steadfastness (James 1:2–4). God was not discovering something about Abraham, God was building something in Abraham. In fact, through this test, Abraham becomes a witness to us of what true faith looks like: a faith that obeys because it trusts.

Abraham believed that God could raise the dead. And, in a powerful typology, that is exactly what God would do with His own Son. Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice up the mountain, just as Christ carried His cross. But where Abraham was stopped by the angel of the Lord, God the Father did not withhold His only Son, but gave Him up for us all (Romans 8:32). Christ died, and was truly raised. Abraham saw this reality “from a distance” and welcomed it (Hebrews 11:13).

So what about us? We are often called to obey God’s Word without knowing how our obedience will bear fruit. We forgive, even when the pain is raw. We serve, even when no one sees. We resist sin, even when the pleasure seems harmless. We press forward in prayer, worship, and faithfulness, even when we feel forgotten. Like Abraham, we climb the mountain not knowing what awaits, but trusting that the Lord will provide.

To trust and obey is not a small thing. It is an act of worship. It is the proof that we believe God’s promises are true. The question is not whether we understand what God is doing. The question is whether we trust the kind of God who makes unbreakable promises. Do we believe that God, who did not spare His own Son, will keep His word to bless, sanctify, and draw us closer to Him when we obey? Abraham’s life speaks across the centuries. Let us listen to his witness. Obey God, because He is worthy of trust. Offer your life in faith, knowing that even when things die (dreams, relationships, hope itself) God is able to raise the dead. That is the God we serve.