Use these for group work, or to assist your personal reflection.

1. What emotions does this great text arouse in you? What do you feel about God’s request of Abraham to sacrifice his son?
2. Discuss with your group the spiritual significance of the sacrifice of the lamb.
3. How does this passage of scripture help us to make sense of Abraham’s life? In what ways does it sum up all that has gone before.

Use the programme which can be found on the link ‘discipleship challenges’. The ‘worksheet’ will help you follow through anything you feel is right to take up. The following notes are for your interest and consideration.

Personal comment:

It is hard to know how to respond to this passage of scripture, and because it points so strongly to the central message of salvation found in the New Testament, it is hard to look at it in its own Old Testament context. However, each of us faces trials of our faith from time to time, and we learn different things each time our faith is ‘tested’. The further we walk on the journey of life, the more we will be tested by our Lord!

Ideas for discipleship programme

• Write a list of the lessons about faith you have learned in the last year, for example, for this will tell you whether you are growing in faith, or standing still!
• Plan a fast for a day, and use the time made available to you to pray about placing what is most dear to you ‘on the altar’ before God, so that He can receive it, and give it back to us according to His will.

Lord Jesus Christ, I rejoice in the love You continue to show me. Help me remember the cost of that love; Your life, Your ministry, Your death, and Your resurrection. Give me the grace to respond by offering all I have in Your service, and being content to follow You all my life. AMEN