Burning Heart Ministries : Your Father's Holy Name: He Is Your Provider

Your Father’s Holy Name: He Is Your Provider

When Jesus instructed us in how to pray, one of the first things He said was that we are to regard the Father’s name as holy. The holiness of God’s name doesn’t imply that we should not speak His name, as some have thought through the ages. Rather, it means that we are to understand and revel in the full commitment of His heart to live out all the implications of His own nature in relationship with us. God has no breakdowns of character or commitment, and as we come to know His name, we meditate on the implications of that name for us. He is holy; therefore, in relationship with us He acts in a holy manner all the time. He can do nothing else, because to act contrary to His name would be to contradict His own character.

So, in this article I want to briefly consider one of God’s names that is profoundly significant to us. We are told in Genesis 22:14 that Abraham gave a name to a place on Mt. Moriah where the Lord met him in a powerful way. Abraham named the place “The-Lord-Will-Provide,” or as the familiar praise song says it, “Jehovah Jireh, my provider.” Many believers have commonly interpreted that name as meaning that God will take care of our physical and material needs, which is a true implication of this name, but it is far grander than that. In order to understand more fully what the Holy Spirit was communicating to Abraham during that encounter, and what it means to treat this name of God as a holy reality, we must consider the context in which this name was assigned to God.

Abraham was an old man by the time this story played out. He was already 100 years old when Isaac, the son of promise and the delight of the old man’s heart, was born. At the time of this story, Isaac is already a young man, and the place that he held in Abraham’s heart is impossible to overstate. Isaac was the embodiment of God’s promises to Abraham, the physical representation of everything meaningful in the old man’s life. He had placed his trust in God’s Word, had been declared righteous because of that trust, and was waiting for the time when the promised inheritance would come to him.

So we can hardly imagine the shock and dismay that struck Abraham’s heart when God spoke to him and asked him to sacrifice the boy as a burnt offering on Mt. Moriah. As a father, I know what it is to have a son who is delightful to me, and the thought of purposefully ending his life because of a word from God is completely beyond the realm of my imagination. Abraham’s dilemma is intense: he loves his son beyond my ability to state it, and yet he knows the voice of the God that he trusts with everything. The questions and anguish that went through his mind must have been beyond description. And yet we know from Scripture that the day after he heard the voice of the Lord commanding him to do this thing, Abraham left on the journey to Mt. Moriah, fully prepared to be obedient. How did he come to this place? What sort of nocturnal wrestling match did Abraham have with God that brought him to the place of willingness and obedience?

I believe that the New Testament gives us two clues to the answer to that question. In John 8:58 Jesus made the statement that “Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and . . . was glad.” Then, in Hebrews 11:19 we find that Abraham came to the conclusion that God “was able to raise him up, even from the dead.” How did Abraham reach that conclusion? There were no resurrection stories in his experience. He did not have Biblical accounts of God’s miraculous activity. All he had was an intimate friendship with this God who asked him to do astonishing things. By putting those two clues together, it is my opinion that as Abraham struggled with God over the command concerning Isaac, God revealed “Jesus’ day” to him. In other words, I believe that God showed Abraham the death and resurrection of Jesus, demonstrating to the old patriarch that God Himself was going to put His own Son to death, and then raise Him up in victory over the grave.

Abraham realized that God was inviting him to do something that God Himself was going to do some four thousand years later—sacrifice His own Son as a sin offering. God was not demanding that Abraham do some bizarre ritualistic murder. Rather, God wanted to see if there was a man on the earth who shared His own passion for the purposes of heaven to be accomplished on the earth. God found such a man in Abraham, one who was willing to be like God, wholly dedicated to His own glory. And when he obeyed, the Lord met him in a powerful and liberating way.

We’re told that on the way to Mt. Moriah, Isaac asked his father about the sacrifice. He saw the wood and the fire, but no animal that was to be slaughtered. Abraham responded with these insightful words: “God will provide Himself the lamb.” Notice the language here. It is usually translated “God will provide for Himself a lamb,” but it is legitimate to say “God will provide Himself, the lamb.” In other words, God Himself would become the sin offering in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. This God, whose name is holy, is so committed to His own purpose being accomplished that He provided everything necessary for the completion of the task. He would require nothing from us but faith, and would give Himself totally to the accomplishment of our redemption. Abraham’s confidence to obey the command, and his conclusion that if necessary God would raise Isaac from the dead to fulfill His promises came out of their intimate friendship and the revelation of God’s own name to his friend.

What God provided on Mt. Moriah was Himself as the solution to all our situations. His provision is so much more than a mere promise to take care of our physical and material needs. He has given us His Son, and as Paul states in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not with Him also freely give us all things?” If God didn’t hold Jesus back from us, how could we even think that He would hold back infinitely inferior things like food, or clothing, or a place to live? What was provided on Mt. Moriah was the full provision of God Himself. He is the One who Provides, and He demonstrated that with the gift of His own precious Son. Therefore, we can count on His provision in every circumstance of our lives, and we must never allow ourselves the dubious privilege of doubting His provision. All we have to do is look at the cross, and we see how foolish it is to mistrust His goodness.

Your Father’s name is holy. His name is Provider, and He will surely meet you at the point of your need. Trust Him in it, and hallow His name.

Gary Wiens, 2/29/2008