“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” John 8:56.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
You do not understand Me or life if you see Me separate from you in any area or endeavor of your life. We are weaving the tapestry of your life together. I knit you, wove you, formed you in your mother’s womb and it did not stop there. And that is what eating the body and drinking the blood of My Son is about. One body with Him.
People often compartmentalize their lives. They see their work and business affairs as separate from Me, even their dealings with others as separate from Me, but it should not be like that. Include Me and walk with Me in every area and arena of your life so I can bless and prosper you and give you wisdom to be excellent at what you do. My Spirit teaches you all things and leads you in the way you should go. When you join with My Son by Covenant you are one Spirit with Him.
See your life and all its facets and growth as one whole big pie of shalom with no pieces missing—My plans to prosper you, to give you a life of good deeds prepared in advance, and fruitful, rewarding works that bless you and the whole world. It is I who teach you to prosper and the way you should go. I taught Abraham and he became very wealthy in silver, gold, and cattle. Every area of his life prospered and he, in turn, blessed and prospered others. He taught Isaac how to prosper and it was by listening to Me and keeping My Word. And I told Isaac when and where to sow to reap one hundredfold. He too was very wealthy and kept increasing all the more.
See your work, you place of employment, as an expression of My love for you. See your family as an expression of My love for you. See the church as an expression of My love for you. See your life as an expression of My love for you. And see partaking in the body and blood of My Son as the expression of My love for you.
When you eat the bread and drink the cup of the communion meal you become of His body and He of yours. You are incorporated into the body—the whole family in Heaven and on earth. Now the great ones are members of your body as well, the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the evangelists, the pastors, and teachers, all who are in the body past, present and future, for all are alive to Me. All are part of your body as well for you are in Christ as they are. All to the praise of the My glory shining in every one of you.
Every time you eat and drink of the body and blood of My Son see yourself as of His body and Him as of your body and also see the other members as well, for the different members of your body do not get credit alone for functioning in an excellent way, it is the body as a whole that is recognized and benefits from all its parts working in the place to which they were made to be. Excellent health, prosperity, and shalom come from every member of your body working together at the maximum of excellence. It is the same in the body of Christ. All the works of excellence being done are shared by you as members of the body under the same head.
Besides referring to believers as the body of Christ, I refer to you as the Church. A structure, an edifice where I dwell in the Spirit. You see this in the heavenly Jerusalem where the patriarchs and apostles have their names written on the foundation stones and Jesus is the capstone, the chief cornerstone upon whom the whole edifice stands.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22.
And just as you are unique members of the body of Christ, you are unique stones in the edifice of the Church.
And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5.
You are of His body doing the works He did and greater in the world and you are of the Church forming My house and a sanctuary for My Spirit. As of His body your names are written in the Lamb’s book of life and as of His church your names are engraved on the stones of the heavenly city Jerusalem.
And today, I will lead you on a journey as I was weaving Abraham’s life with mine, in a journey to Mt. Moriah, and just as he walked up that hill of sacrifice with his beloved son by whom his descendants would be called, so I too did with Mine.
The LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” Genesis 18:17-19.
Many years after Abraham had sent Hagar and Ishmael away, when he was living in Beersheba, I tested him to see if I could entrust him with a very great reward, that is, entrusting his line with the birth of the Messiah. I made his descendants the line in which I would plant the seed of the promised Messiah, My Son, come in the flesh to save you from the sentence of condemnation of sin and death and reconcile you to Me with your sins gone. And what was the test I gave him? The same one I would undergo. The sacrifice of the beloved Son for the sins of My people to whom the stroke was due. For you had all gone astray like lost sheep but I laid upon Him, the guilt of you all. The just for the unjust, the righteous for the sinner, so that in Him you would become righteous with My own righteousness.
Abraham’s son, Isaac, was not qualified to be the one designated to offer His eternal life for the eternal life you lost, that is, murdered, in Adam, as he too was born of Adam’s corrupted seed and did not have an eternal life to offer but I showed Abraham what I was going to do and he had a heart to do likewise. He was willing to give his son to Me and I therefore had the opportunity to bless his line with the Son I gave for you.
I said to him, “Abraham.” And he said, “Here I am.” Abraham was familiar with Me. I called Him “My friend,” just as Jesus does you when you know what He has told you about Me and when He has shared My Words with you. A slave does not know what his master is doing but just blindly follows commands. A friend is someone who knows the why of what you, their friend, is doing and strongly supports it as if it were their own project as well.
When I called to Abraham, he immediately responded as ready to perform My Word. By this time, he had a long relationship with Me and he knew My plans brought blessing without sorrow while his did not turn out so well, witness Ishmael, which is still causing strife between the seed of Ishmael and the seed of Isaac. But I blessed Ishmael because he was Abraham’s son.
But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named. And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant.” Genesis 21:12-13.
I bless the descendants of those who love Me for thousands of generations.
But the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep His covenant and remember His precepts to do them. Psalm 103:17-18.
And I told Abraham the project, which was a foretelling of My project and the opportunity for him to join in as well, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” Genesis 22:2. Isaac was not Abraham’s only son, but he was the son of the promise. Jesus too is My Son of the promise made to you in the Garden of Eden after the fall, that the seed of the woman, the virgin born, would crush the devil’s head (authority over mankind) as the devil struck His heel (His humanity in the crucifixion).
Abraham did not question this strange sounding command. He knew Me well enough by then to look forward to a blessing and to finding out a revelation about future events. He knew Me as one who gave and gave and never took away what I gave, in fact, I just added more, even when he had misled Abimelech about Sarah. I appreciated Abraham as the only one who was willing to follow Me and talk with Me since Noah.
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. Hebrews 11:17-19.
Though no one had been resurrected from the dead before, Abraham trusted that even if Isaac were sacrificed, I would raise him up and send him back home with Abraham. I had promised him a son through whom his descendants would be called, and he was not budging off that promise. Like, many years later, the woman from Shunem when her little son that My prophet Elisha had promised her died. She received him back again because by faith she refused to accept the death of the promise.
The very next day, Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place (HaMaqom (הַמָּק֖וֹם), the rising place) of which I had told him in the land of Moriah. Moriah was where the temple mount (HaMaqom) was to be located with Calvary right across from temple mount. On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and I showed him the place (HaMaqom) from a distance.
The Place. I showed it to Abraham when I directed him where to take Isaac for his sacrifice. Later Jacob found it and saw the ladder to heaven and named it “Beth-el,” the House of God and gate of Heaven. David found it and when the angel appeared on the threshing floor of Ornan and the plague ceased. And it was there he directed Solomon to build My House that I had told Moses to build for sacrifice when I showed the Israelites the Place where I would put My Name.
Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 Chronicles 3:1.
The place, the rising (HaMaqom, from qum, arise), where I put My Name, the place of sacrifice. The only place. A house of sacrifice, chosen and consecrated by Me and everyone who humbles himself and comes in faith and prays there will be saved. “My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14.
There is something greater than the temple Solomon built here. It is only the shadow, the substance is Christ Jesus, My Son. I have given Him My Name and He has given it to you and given you the Holy Spirit so now you are My dwelling place.
But let us continue on to The Place in our Eucharistic journey in the Spirit and again join the father and the son on the way to The Place.
Abraham’s son was riding on a donkey with two of Abraham’s servants leading him as he rode up to the site where later Solomon would build the temple. Does it sound familiar?
When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold your King is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. Matthew 21:1-7.
And on the day of “Palm Sunday,” after riding into Jerusalem, Jesus immediately went to the temple, He looked around but returned the next day to overturn the money changers’ tables. Abraham and Isaac took the same route but there was no temple there yet. Abraham had found HaMaqom, the very rock of sacrifice where he laid his beloved son upon which I would raise up My house. And upon this rock would stand the Holy of Holies. And on the rock of sacrifice I built My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Abraham said to his two young men who were there with the donkey, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”
You see here again Abraham was fully persuaded that I would not take his beloved son from him.
Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, just as the wooden cross was laid upon the shoulders of My Son. Abraham took in his hand the fire and the knife. Abraham, his father carried the fire and the knife. Jesus came to cast fire on the earth and to bring a sword rather than peace between those who believe and do not believe, between evil and good, between the darkness and the light.
“I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather the sword of division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Luke 12:49-53.
Two can only walk together if they agree. Abraham and Isaac walked on together. I was with Jesus, He always did what pleased Me, even to dying on the cross to redeem you from the curse of the law of sin and death. I was in Christ reconciling the world to Myself not counting your sins and offenses against you but instead accounting them all to My Son. We walked up that mountain of Moriah together as Abraham and Isaac had done.
Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
And here Abraham prophesied, for Abraham was a prophet. And here you see that Abraham knew Isaac did not qualify as the burnt offering. Only My Son would suffice.
Abraham said, “God will Himself provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. Genesis 22:8.
Many years later, by the river Jordan, John the Baptist, the herald of My Son, would identify Jesus as the fulfillment of the words of My prophet Abraham:
John answered them saying, “I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:26-29.
Then they came to the place of which I had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. This is the stone that later Jacob would find. Ha Macomb. The place where I would put My Name for My House. And now that is My Son and He has made each one of you a house of God and a gate of Heaven. The rising place.
Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But My messenger called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” He had been willing to do for Me what I would do for all of you.
Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.
You will note that Abraham raised his eyes and looked, but the ram was behind him. Where did he raise his eyes and look? Remember when I showed him the land I would give his descendants I told him to lift up his eyes and see the revelation I was showing him, just as when I had him raise his eyes to the stars in the night sky to tell the story of his seed. You know what he saw, for when you lift up your eyes from temple mount you see Calvary.
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham [q]was born, I am.” John 8:56-58.
Abraham saw Jesus’ Day, for I taught Abraham the gospel ahead of time, Galatians 3:8, the Day Jesus was lifted up and drew all men to Himself. Raising his eyes he looked down the ages as I do and he saw the cross upon the hill and he rejoiced. This is the day that I have made, be glad and rejoice in it. You are saved. You are redeemed. You have eternal life. That is the day to rejoice and be glad in. And Abraham was.
And Abraham called the name of the place, “THE LORD looks ahead and provides.” The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.” Now HaMaqom had a name. My Name. The place in which I put My Name. And the Name I chose was the one who provides for you.
Then My messenger called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of His enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Here it is the promise for the seed to be planted in His line by the Holy Spirit that would bring the Messiah, born of a woman, born of a virgin into the world. I had the line now, My people, the descendants of Abraham, My friend who was willing to imitate Me and walk in loving faith, even to the point of giving his son.
I made a promise of increase and blessing, even more favor on him than before because he had not only obeyed My voice but willingly been ready to sacrifice his son as the burnt offering for the sins of men. And then there at the rock of salvation where he had just sacrificed the ram I provided in place of his son, I made a promise that the promised seed raised up from his line would possess the gates of His enemies, singular not plural. Does this sound familiar? It is all about the rock on which My church is built, the rock of Salvation, that is, the rock of the revelation of Jesus as My Son, your Messiah, Savior, and Lord. And that was what Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw from The Place.
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hell will not overpower (katischuó (κατισχύω): prevail against, overpower, get the upper hand) it. Matthew 16:16-18.
Then Abraham and Isaac returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham lived at Beersheba. And some news came to Abraham right after he had walked the path of Calvary with Me.
And what was the news that came to Abraham after the walk up Moriah as Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice Isaac? He received news that Rebekah, the granddaughter of his brother Nahor, had been born. Genesis 22:20-23. A bride for his son was born after the intended sacrifice of his son. The bride of My Son was born at the cross as well, right after the real sacrifice, the Church, taken from His side, just as Eve was from Adam. From the sacrifice of the dearly beloved son, we each got a bride for our son as well. No language in the Bible is there as idle observation. It all as its fulfillment in Christ.
Now it came about after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, “Behold, Milcah also has borne children to your brother Nahor: Uz his firstborn and Buz his brother and Kemuel the father of Aram and Chesed and Hazo and Pildash and Jidlaph and Bethuel.” Bethuel became the father of Rebekah; these eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. Genesis 22:20-23.
I love you. The way of the cross is a walk through history if you really want to know more of the mystery in our Eucharistic journey. “Do this in remembrance of Me.” There is so much to remember.
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written. John 21:25.