EASTER FRIDAY - What is the difference between God's provision and God's promise?

When God provides, you and I have to do nothing more than to receive His supernatural provision – God is the active agent, all we have to do, is to receive.

We know how manna fell from heaven and how quail flew into their camp to provide the Israelites with bread and meat.

On the other hand, God often made incredible promises. 

This is God's promise to Abraham: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Gen.12:2-3)

But the thing is that the fulfillment of a promise does not fall from the sky!

When we receive a promise, there will be a co-labouring with God in seeing that promise fulfilled, we too play an active part in the promise.

Abraham had to persevere for years, in faith, for that which God promised, until we read these words of Gen.21:1-3:

“Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what He had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.”

But in the next chapter, things take a horrible turn: Gen.22:1-18

“Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. 

Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." 

Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 

On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. 

"The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 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." The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

Not quite what Abraham expected to hear; yet he responds with an incredible mixture of faith and obedience! He does not waste time, he does not fast about it, he does not argue with God, or remind God that Isaac was the son of the promise and that he himself was supposed to become the father of nations, and that his descendants were to be as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. He simply acts in faith-filled obedience!

There is a point on the journey when Abraham leaves his servants behind, to continue with only Isaac by his side, saying: “we will worship and then we will come back to you.”

Apart from his faith that they would both return, I am more awestruck by Abraham's choice of verb – “we will worship” – not we will pray, or we will plead with God, or wrestle with God trying to change God's mind, but we will worship God and then we will return!

If we look closely, we will we see a wonderful preview of what is to come in Christ – the son, Isaac, carries the wood on his shoulders, up the hill, to the place where he is to be sacrificed. Jn.19:17 reads: “Carrying His own cross, He (Jesus) went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).” the place where He was to be sacrificed. 

Yes, in both the case of Isaac and Jesus the answer to the question “But where is the lamb”? - would have to have been: “My son, you are the lamb!”

Yet in great faith, Abraham answered his son’s question as follows: “God Himself will provide the lamb!

Basically Abraham is saying: “My son I am desperately hanging on to God's promise, therefore I am trusting for God's provision!”

Heb.11:17-18: “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." Abraham was hanging on to his promise from God, but by faith, he was so sure of what he was hoping for, and so certain of what he did not yet see, that he spoke of God's provision and not only of God's promise - “God Himself will provide the lamb”!

“Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns.”

The moment of breakthrough, when the promise becomes provision.

When the promise is no longer out there somewhere, but it is right here in front of me – all I need to do is to “grab it by the horns”!

As I sit here typing, I am part of those descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Yet, for us to be part of “the blessing to all nations on earth”, we need more than the shadow of the Christ to come, we need the Christ Himself! The New Covenant in the blood of Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant by the cross of Jesus Christ.

Jesus comes as God's provision to fulfill God's promise and to become our breakthrough – the covenant of promise becomes the covenant of provision in Christ! In Gen 22:8 Abraham prophecies that “God will provide the lamb”; and in Jn.1:29 John the Baptist points to Jesus with these words: “ "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The ultimate fulfillment of God's promise is Jesus!

God provided the Lamb for us – His sacrifice became our breakthrough!

When it comes to salvation – God provides the Lamb – we do not have to co-labour - all we have to do is to receive the provision, the gift.

Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, provided for our breakthrough, our gift of life!

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