When You Lose Everything, You Gain Everything

I want to invite you to turn to the Book of Genesis, chapter 2, and I am going to title this sermon: “When You Lose Everything, You Gain Everything”—when you lose everything, you gain everything. Remember the words of Jesus Christ, who said that whoever loses his life will gain it, and that is a principle found throughout Scripture: when you give everything to the Lord and lose it all, the Lord then gives it back to you many times over.

And this is the well-known story of Abraham and that moment in his life when God asks him to give up his son Isaac and sacrifice him. It contains some very special lessons for this Mother’s Day. I chose it even though it features a man, a father, because the spirit contained in this message is absolutely fitting for reflecting on fatherhood and motherhood, on the maternal-paternal Spirit of God, and on the spirit to which we are called by the Word with respect to our children, our motherhood, and our fatherhood. This text contains lessons for fathers and mothers alike, but I dedicate it to mothers, and its original occasion is precisely Mother’s Day, so that is the inspiration I received from the Lord.

Genesis chapter 22, beginning with verse 1, says: “After these things, God tested Abraham”—a test; He examined him, examined what was inside his heart. How many know that actions reveal what is in the heart, right? God tested his heart and said to him, “Abraham,” and he answered, “Here I am.”

I believe that every believer should ultimately sign a blank sheet of paper, and what that paper expresses is: Here I am. Whatever You want from my life, Lord, whatever You want to write on the page of my life, here I am; I am willing, I am available. When that willingness exists on the part of a woman or a man, then God can do and write wonderful things in the story of our lives.

Abraham said to Him, “Here I am.” He did not know what God was going to ask of him, but God said to him: “Take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, 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.”

“And Abraham rose very early in the morning and saddled his donkey”—meaning that he prepared it and strapped on the saddle—“and took with him two of his servants and Isaac his son; and he cut wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place God had told him about.”

“On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his servants, ‘Wait here with the donkey, and the boy and I will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.’”

“And Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire and the knife in his hand, and the two of them went on together. Then Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, ‘My father.’ And he answered, ‘Here I am, my son.’ And he said, ‘Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ And Abraham answered, ‘God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ And they went on together.”

“And when they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. Then the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham.’ And he answered, ‘Here I am.’ And He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son.’”

“Then Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place ‘The Lord Will Provide’; therefore it is said to this day, ‘On the mountain of the Lord it shall be provided.’” May the Lord bless His Word.

As I was saying, I dedicate this sermon to my sisters who are mothers. I would say that this is one of the most beautiful passages in Scripture. The level of faith Abraham displays is unprecedented. I do not believe there is any moment more pregnant with spirituality and moral lessons than this one, or any moment that more powerfully reflects the deepest and most mysterious values of the Gospel than this moment of sublime and total surrender of something we love. The level of detachment Abraham displays in this passage is unique, and it inspires us to seek that same level of faith in our personal lives.

I would say that the Bible establishes this moment as a kind of marker in the pages of Scripture. It is a key point that invites each one of us to measure our faith and our level of surrender to the Lord in light of that act of Abraham—an act without precedent or later imitation—so that we may measure ourselves by our willingness to fulfill God’s will in our lives and to do whatever He asks of us, no matter how shocking or sacrificial it may seem.

Certainly, there are other passages that show us Abraham’s faith and integrity, but I would say that none does so like this passage. Centuries after this event, the writer of Hebrews presents Abraham and this event in his life as the foremost example of what faith is, as a paradigm of faith.

In Hebrews chapter 11, verses 17 through 19, the writer says: “By faith Abraham”—and this is while he is giving a survey of examples of faith throughout history—“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises”—that is, God had promised Abraham a son years earlier—“he who had received the promises was now offering up his only begotten son, of whom it had been said, ‘In Isaac your descendants shall be called.’” In other words, he is making this clear: this man receives the promise of a son, and now this is his only legitimate son, and he has been told, “This is where your descendants will come from.” Yet he reasoned that God was powerful enough even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he also received him back. In other words, when God tells him, “Do not kill your son,” it is almost like a resurrection, because he was already about to plunge the knife into his throat. When the angel tells him, “Stop,” it is as though his son rises again, because in Abraham’s mind...

I believe God waited for Abraham mentally to cross the threshold of “Will I do it or won’t I?” When the angel tells him, “Stop,” it is because Abraham has already carried out the mental transaction of slaying his son. Perhaps up to that moment he was going back and forth: “Will I do it or won’t I? Will I do it or won’t I?” But when Abraham crosses that threshold and says, “Yes,” and his will has already been girded, the angel tells him, “Stop.” At that moment God gives his son back to him. So it is a resurrection, from which, figuratively speaking, he also received him back.

That is to say, the writer of Hebrews is pointing to that moment as something very, very momentous in the history of faith. And in Romans, the writer of Romans, the apostle Paul, says that Abraham is the father of all believers. Every person who believes God within the Judeo-Christian tradition—every person of faith—is, in a sense, a descendant of Abraham.

Romans 4:11 says that Abraham received circumcision as a sign, as a seal of the righteousness of the faith he had while still uncircumcised. That would take a long time to explain, but it was so that he might be the father of all uncircumcised believers—that is us Gentiles—so that faith might also be credited to them as righteousness. We belong to that Gentile people who have no Hebrew ancestry, yet we too are part of that spiritual tradition in which our believing God is credited to us as justification; believing in Christ, for example, is our righteousness.

And he is the father of the circumcised. Abraham is not only the father of Gentiles who believe but also the father of the Hebrews who believe God, those who are not merely circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. In other words, that act and those acts of faith by Abraham establish him as the father of the faith of others who believe.

Now, why is the act of faith recorded in this passage of Genesis so exceptional? Let us look at that a little more closely. As we know, Abraham had received God’s promise that he would have a son. At what age—how many of you know? At the age of 75. So if you have not yet had a child, there is hope for you; do not despair, you know, mother and father. At 75 this man has had no children, and God tells him, “You are going to have a son; I am going to give him to you.” And you know what? God took another 25 years to grant it to him. The Lord likes to let His miracles simmer thoroughly first.

He took another 25 years to fulfill that promise, and Abraham and Sarah, his wife, had Isaac when Sarah was already 100 years old. I think those sperm cells were already walking with canes on their way to fertilize Sarah. That just slipped out; forgive me. (Laughter.) Lord, have mercy on this brain. Brothers and sisters, please get that out of your minds. Imagine how a couple would feel upon having a long-awaited child at 100 years of age, when that dream of fatherhood and motherhood had already been abandoned. How deeply one would love that child!

One thinks, for example, of the love grandparents have, which I believe comes closest to the tenderness they must have felt. Abraham was a grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and father, I think, all at the same time. There was a mixture of different kinds of love there. And in fact, before Isaac, Abraham had indeed had a son named Ishmael—this is for the Bible scholars—but he was an illegitimate son; he was not the son of his wife, and he was not the son God had promised him, because He had told Sarah that she would become a mother. He was not the son born of the marital union between Abraham and Sarah. That son was actually the result of Sarah’s impatience, because Sarah said to Abraham, “Look, this God has promised you this son, and 20 years have already passed and you have not had him, so go in to this servant woman.” And Abraham, very humbly and obediently—well, what else could the poor man do?—went in to Hagar and had a son with her named Ishmael, right? And how many problems Ishmael has caused the world! He is the father of the Arabs, the Muslims.

One thing God likes to do is take His time giving us what He has promised. In our desire to have it, we sometimes want to help God and artificially produce something that is not from God. We must be careful. When God promises something, He has His own timing, and He fulfills it at the proper moment. Wait for it, and it will come; it will not delay, says the Word of the Lord.

But now, in Genesis 22, this deeply loved, long-awaited, greatly desired son is, as it were, fully ripened at the height of his beauty—17 or 18 years old, surely a handsome young man, full of life and energy, the hope of this father-grandfather, already enjoying his father’s love and favor. And, surprisingly, we find that God asks Abraham to give Him his son—and not only that, but to slit his throat himself as a sacrifice.

Here we are not told that Abraham protested; there is nothing like that. But you and I can imagine what Abraham’s first night must have been like after God told him, “Sacrifice your son to Me.” What anguish! What a degree of agony he must have experienced! How he must have questioned the will and morality of a God who gives you a son, leads you to cultivate love for him, leads you to love him desperately, tells you that your descendants will come through him, and then tells you: “You know what? Cancel all of that. I have changed My mind. I regret it. Kill him for Me, for My enjoyment.” We are not told about Abraham’s agony, but we can imagine it. God asks him to give up his son.

And we know something interesting: in this process in which God is asking Abraham for his son, He is not only testing Abraham but also rehearsing His own coming drama, because thousands of years later God will carry out exactly what He is asking Abraham to do. This time no one will tell Him, “No, do not do it.” This time He will have to go through with it and, in a sense, kill His own Son, Jesus Christ.

The language God uses when He commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac foreshadows the divine drama itself centuries later. You read in verse 2: “And God said to him, ‘Abraham, take now your son, your only son’”—God’s only begotten Son, who was sacrificed on the cross of Calvary—“‘take your son, whom you love’”—that beloved Son—“‘take him and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering.’” God offered His Son Jesus Christ as a burnt offering for us: the Passover sacrifice, the slain Lamb. Interestingly, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on a mountain, and the Lord was also crucified on Mount Golgotha.

Another interesting parallel is that Isaac carries his own wood, the wood on which they are going to kill him and slit his throat, just as Christ carried His own cross. And another thing: Isaac, by then a strong young man, could have overpowered his father when he was about to slit his throat. But Isaac lies down upon the wood of the sacrifice and allows himself to be bound; he submits to this mysterious act from God that seems entirely capricious and arbitrary, just as the Lord did.

He said, “Father, if it is within Your will, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, let Your will be done, and not Mine.” And the Lord went up on the cross for us as well. He said, “I could summon a legion of angels to deliver Me, but if You tell Me to do it, I will.” And that is what we must do when God asks us to do something shocking.

Despite the terrible nature of the divine command, Abraham obeys with complete willingness; he gets up very early, cuts the wood, heads to the place God has indicated to him, does everything with excellence, and carries fire prepared to light that blessed wood upon which his son is going to have his throat cut. He carried everything out perfectly. If it had been me, I would have gotten up at three in the afternoon; he got up at five in the morning to walk. He got up early and went directly to the place of sacrifice. We have to embrace the Will of God in our lives; we have to bless the hand of the one who slaps us, and in that there is spiritual greatness and great blessing.

Abraham’s willingness reminds me how important it is that we not merely obey God grudgingly, but obey Him gladly and enter into the drama God sets before us.

When God places something before you, do not look for excuses to justify your reluctance or your delay in obeying Him. Instead, obey Him with all your heart and all your strength, and even give Him more than He asks of you; in that you will be greatly blessed and honored.

By being willing to sacrifice his son, Abraham displays an essential element of faith, and it is this that I am about to say: God is the source of every good thing that you and I have, and everything we call our own ultimately belongs to Him. What we have is not ours; it belongs to God. That is the essence of what theology calls stewardship: you are the steward of what you have; you are not its owner. If your employer lends you a car so that you can carry out your work assignments, when you drive that gleaming new car, you know that it is not yours; it belongs to your company, and it has been lent to you so that you can perform the company’s work. And you have to take care of that car because it is not yours. You cannot say, “Oh, look at the beautiful car I have.” You have to take care of it, and that is how it is with the possessions in our lives.

We are always taking possession of what belongs to God. Everything you receive comes from God, and you have to manage it accordingly. And if God asks us for or takes away something He once gave us, we have to bless Him, kiss His Hand, and gladly give Him whatever He asks of us or takes away from us. That is the very essence of the life of faith, and do you know what? In that willingness there is great security for your life.

Do you know what the best insurance is? Sometimes when you buy a television, they say to you, “Hey, would you like to buy insurance?” And sometimes, over the years, they charge you more than the television itself, you know?

But do you know the best way to insure your house, your marriage, your car, and your children? Give them to the Lord. Sign a letter over to Him and say, “Lord, this is Yours, and I am going to manage it for You for a time. I am going to do the best job possible, but—and I am going to do the best job possible—but I know that it belongs to You. I am not going to take possession of it; I am not going to try to take possession of it; I am not going to control it; I am not going to try to do whatever I want with it. I am going to be Your steward, and I will always be looking to You and asking, ‘What do You want me to do with these possessions today?’ It is Yours, and I want to manage it well.” That is the essence of biblical faith.

Everything belongs to God, including our money, our profession, our children, our dreams—everything we love belongs to Him. If there is anything we love more than God, it has already become an idol, and that is idolatry. Anything you place above the Will and governance of God is idolatry. You must hold everything you have loosely in your hand. Correy ten Boom, a famous believer, used to say that she had learned to hold everything she had loosely in her hand, so that if God tore it away from her, it would not hurt.

At the very beginning of the formation of the Christian faith, there on Moriah, we see that God is establishing a precedent that serves as the foundation of our faith. And on this Mother’s Day I have thought a great deal about Abraham, even though he was a man, because he also embodies the essence of motherhood and fatherhood, and he is a good example of how we should regard, love, and treat our children.

Our children do not belong to us. Mothers, understand this: your child is not yours; your child belongs to God. Let us not possess them or control them. The Bible says that we should not provoke them to anger by trying to put them—as though putting them into a tiny drawer so they cannot move—trying to shield them from pain and keep them there under micromanagement. Release your children to the Will of the Lord.

Children, do not take advantage of that either, because I see some of you there saying, “You see, Mom, what he is telling you?” It is a dance between parents and children. The father and mother let go as the son or daughter matures; the son and daughter submit to their father and honor him, bless their mother, and God blesses that son or daughter who blesses his or her mother and father. Then it becomes a wonderful dance that glorifies God.

Our children do not belong to us, and they are mysterious instruments of God through whom His Will is fulfilled on Earth. God honors you by bringing an instrument of His into the world so that you may prepare and sharpen it for Him, and release it so that you may help advance the Kingdom of God on Earth.

God gives us our children so that we may care for them and shape them for Him. We have to consecrate them to God from the beginning and do everything possible to shape and educate them so that they will love God above all things and become useful instruments for His Kingdom in His Hands.

When God gives you a son or a daughter, He is giving you an arrow. God is giving you a loving projectile for you to launch for the blessing of humanity. And instead of perhaps giving your child a gun, give your child a book; instead of buying headphones so your child can listen to music that corrupts them, take your child to a museum one day to admire works of art, give your child good music, and put that creativity to work. Speak about noble things, bring your child to Church, and invest in your child.

If your child says to you, “Dad, Mom, I want to go to Church on Friday night, to I Wanna, or to Sunday school,” look, undress yourself, lose whatever you have to lose, take the morsel out of your own mouth, but if you can do anything to enrich that child so that the child may be useful in the Hands of God, do it. When you have your children, say, “God has placed a treasure in my hand, and I have to create something precious that God can use.”

It reminds me of the story of Hannah, when God also gave her Samuel in such a miraculous way. What did Hannah do? Hannah did not say, “Wow, I waited so long for this son; I am going to devour him down to the very last little bone.” No. She took that son whom God had miraculously given her, brought him to the temple, and said, “I dedicate him to God.” Do you know what that means? And she said, “From now on, Samuel will live in the temple and will be a priest for God.” Samuel went on to become the great prophet Samuel; he opened the prophetic dispensation in the Old Testament, a mighty man of God.

And then, interestingly, God gave Hannah more children. This woman’s womb had been closed for decades, but when she gave the son God had given her as a sacrifice, God then gave her many more children. And that is the central dynamic of faith: when you give to the Lord, God gives you more; when you let go of things, God says to you, “Now I am going to give to you until you tell Me, ‘That is enough; do not give me any more.’” Many of us know what we are talking about.

Your children are instruments of God, and they have a mission to fulfill on Earth. Nourish that mission with your faith. Do not look at the devil doing evil things through your children; see God taking them through a process of formation, sanctify what they are experiencing, and say, “I am not going to let you go until I see the greatness of God fulfilled in your life.” Do not stop praying for them. Bathe them with water, with a precious little plant, and envision in your mind the great things they are going to do for the advancement and glory of the Name of God. Never surrender your children to the devil. Do not give up; do not stop praying; do not stop crying out; do not stop watering them with your prayers and your creative expectation that God is doing something glorious in their lives. And until you have a Samuel in your hands, do not let go; cry out to the Lord, believe for great things, and invest in them, because they are instruments.

And when something you did not expect happens—something mysterious—when it seems that the machine has jammed and they are no longer making progress, when it seems that they have done something irreparable that has damaged their lives, believe that with God there are no abortions. God always completes what He begins, so keep fighting, keep waiting, keep blessing, and believe for a glorious ending. There are no premature deaths of divine dreams.

That reminded me of the words of Dwight L. Moody. I am now finishing a biography of the great nineteenth-century evangelist, a very mighty man of God, a man of faith. Moody lost two grandchildren when he was already at the height of his life, and I was reading a letter that he wrote to his son and daughter-in-law when one of his granddaughters died, in order to comfort them; it moved me this week. Her name was Irene, and I am going to translate the words of that precious letter Moody wrote to his children to comfort them. He says—because he was elsewhere evangelizing, in another city, and could not arrive in time to bury his little granddaughter—

He wrote a telegram and said: “This morning I have been thinking about the old prophet waiting in the Jordan Valley so many years ago for the chariot that was to take him home”—he was thinking about Elijah. “God’s chariot came to the Connecticut Valley,” where they lived, “yesterday morning at six thirty and took our little Irene to her heavenly home. The former”—that is, the prophet Elijah—“was taken at the end of his days of active service; the latter, Irene, was taken in the early dawn of her youth. But the prophet’s service was no more complete,” Moody says, “than the service of that little servant of the Lord, Irene, because God called them both, and God never interrupts the service of one of His own.”

“Irene has finished her race; her work here on Earth has been put to good use, and she accomplished more than many have accomplished in their seventy years. And we would not take her back; we would not want her returned to us. Although her voice was the sweetest voice I ever heard on all the Earth, and she never came near me from the time she was three months old without a smile, even during the painful times of her illness, Christ had some other service for her up there.”

“My life has been much better because of her ministry here on Earth. She has made all of us better. This morning I thank God for the hope of immortality. I know that I will see her on that glorious future morning, more beautiful in the glory of her resurrection than when she was here on Earth.” That is the attitude of surrender and relinquishment of someone who knows that our children have a mission to fulfill here on Earth and that nothing happens in their lives that cuts short God’s purpose. God always has something in mind and fulfills it; His timing is perfect. And we have to surrender our children to the Will of the Lord again and again, giving them the best possible example and the best education so that they may grow up to be men and women of faith who love the Lord above all things.

When we invest our children, when we invest our money and our marriage in the Kingdom of God, when we submit them to the Will of God and say to Him, “Lord, may Your Will be done in this that You have placed under our stewardship,” when we detach ourselves emotionally from them and consecrate them to the Lord, then the Lord God blesses them and gives us far more than we gave Him.

The greatest security for our children is a father who prays and says, “Lord, may Your Will be done in my child’s life. Oh, I wanted a great singer; I wanted an engineer, but You have wanted something else. May Your Will be done.” Do not control; do not take ownership. Release your children to the Lord, and let the Lord take them through His process.

Brothers and sisters, we have to let go of the things we love most, to the point that, because we are so detached from them, it appears that we hate them. Do you understand when Christ says, “Whoever does not hate his father and mother”? It does not mean that you hate them in the sense of detesting them. It means that you detach yourself so completely from the things of this world—children, money, time, leisure, comfort, dreams, career, aspirations—that you let go to such an extent that your detachment becomes so profound that it borders on detestation and hatred. It appears that you hate them because you are so detached from them. It is active detachment, not passive detachment, when we say, “Lord, I give You what I love most.”

The Bible says that great multitudes were following Jesus, but He turned and said to them: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.”

What separates someone from the crowd—from the great multitude that follows Jesus Christ because they have been told that the Lord heals and provides, prospers and blesses, gives cars, gives houses, gives victories, and they follow Him because of what they can gain—from a true disciple? The disciple says: Lord, whatever You want to give me, that is what I receive. You have given me children; I give them back to You. I will care for them, I will train them; may Your Will be done. You gave me a career; if You want it, Lord, it is Yours. I love to sleep, but if You want me to stay up praying and crying out and serving others, glory to God. I love my money, and it is good to have it, but if You ask me for it to advance Your Kingdom, take it, Lord; it is Yours too.

Put everything you have at the Lord’s disposal. If God asks you for it in the most shocking and forceful way, give it to Him and thank Him for allowing you to be used; do not cling to anything in this world. Abraham could very well have said: Lord, absolutely not. How dare You ask me for what You Yourself have given me? That son is mine; I have longed for him all my life. You gave him to me. You cannot go back on Your promise. This son belongs to me. I am going to enjoy him until I die; I cannot give him to You. Abraham let go of what was legitimately his so that God’s Will might be fulfilled in his life.

If he had said to God, “Lord, I cannot do that,” do you think God would not have let him keep him? God would have respected Abraham’s will. When God asks us for something and we decide not to give it to Him, then that is between you and your God; God is not going to force you. Now, you are missing out on a great blessing, and when that thing you have and love more than God does not enter into God’s Will, it is left adrift, in another zone of contingency and accident, because what is safe is what is within God’s Will. No matter how many storms come, if it is within God’s Will, no one can take it away from you.

Do you know what the safest place in the entire history of humanity is? The boat in the middle of the storm with Jesus inside it. That boat could never sink; not even a boat lodged in a mountain far away from the sea would be safer than that boat, because the Lord was inside it.

If your children are given to the Lord, they are under God’s covering. Your money, your time, your dreams, your profession—if everything is in the Lord’s Hands and you have said to Him, “Father, do whatever You want with it,” it is shielded, protected by the Lord’s good Will. And if God takes something away from you, He will give it back to you many times over in some way—dignified, ennobled, beautified—because you have placed it at His disposal. And Philippians 2 encourages us to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.

Abraham could legitimately have refused to give his son to the Lord, but he did not cling to him; he let go of him. Christ could have clung to His perfect, uncomplicated deity in heaven, but when God said to Him, “Son, I need You to make Yourself small as a baby and, at a certain point, to go up onto a cross and be sacrificed for the good of humanity,” the Lord did not say to Him: Father, how can You ask that of Me? I, the King of kings and Lord of lords, perfectly divine—am I to become a fragile baby and partake of all the indignities of a human being? Do not ask such a thing of Me. But the Lord did not cling to it; rather, the Word says that He emptied Himself, stripped Himself, and came down in the form of a man, and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. And do you know what happened? It says: “Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him a Name that is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.”

When you surrender yourself to the Lord’s Will, when you give everything you love to the Lord, when you strip yourself of your glory and place everything at the Lord’s disposal, God then exalts you, lifts you up; you experience happiness, you experience joy, you experience the true pleasure of having something that God now blesses with His blessing.

As I close, I ask you: Are you willing—are we as a Congregation willing, am I, who preach this message, willing—to give up everything that legitimately belongs to us, including our children, so that God’s purposes may be fulfilled in our lives? This is what truly marks a Christian as a person of faith and not merely a superficial follower of Jesus Christ.

The matter of children is simply the beginning of something much deeper. What God wants you to give Him is your heart. He says: Give Me your heart, My child, and let your eyes see through My eyes. That is the radical posture God honors. Until a believing man or woman has reached the point of giving the Lord the seat of their will, that person is not a true follower of Christ. Until God hears the sound of a branch of the will breaking, He is not satisfied, and He will pursue us until that moment comes, until we lower our heads like a horse when its rider breaks it and it allows itself to be ridden and used. And that is what God wants from you: for you to die.

I ask you this afternoon: What is your Isaac? What is your Isaac? What do you love most? What is it that makes you say, “Lord, I will give You everything else, but do not ask me for that”? There are compartments in our lives; there are strongboxes whose combinations only we know, and God is not going to force them open. That is where we keep our treasure. The Bible says that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.

Is there something you have not given to the Lord? Is there a child you love desperately and about whom you say, “If this is taken from me, I will die”? Is there a man or woman whom you love more than God’s good Will and God’s approval in your life? Is there a bank account, a house, a profession about which you say, “Lord, I cannot give You this; do not ask me for it”? You have not said it with your mouth; you have said it with your heart, with your mind—invisibly, inaudibly—but you have said it. And as long as you do that, God’s perfect Will is not going to be fulfilled in your life. But when you do give it up, God says: That is what I was waiting for. Now I am going to enter your life; I am going to bless you; I am going to multiply you.

God said to Abraham: Because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from Me, I will make your descendants like the sand of the sea and like the stars of heaven. If the stars of heaven can be counted, then your descendants will be countable.

How many spiritual children has Abraham had since those thousands of years ago when he had an encounter with God on Mount Moriah? Countless generations of men and women who regard him as their spiritual father because he had the courage to give the Lord what he loved most.

I encourage you this afternoon: father, mother, give Him your children; prosperous person, give the Lord your prosperity; person who has some treasure, give it to the Lord in advance. Bow your head right where you are; God is speaking to you this afternoon. The Lord says to you: I want you to leave here today having given Me everything you have. I want you to sign a blank sheet of paper and hand it to Me, and on that paper you will be saying: Lord, whatever You want to write into the program of my life, I say yes to You. If you dare to do that, your life will be something glorious—a heroic life, an epic life. You will never be bored; you will never be mediocre; you will not leave this world without having left a mark. You will advance the Kingdom of God, and very likely you will have great joys and great pleasures in your life, because the Lord never beats us and squeezes every drop out of us without also blessing us. God also makes sure to give you blessings and pleasures that the devil and the world cannot give you.

Give the Lord your heart; give Him your life. This Church must give this Church to the Lord. From here, I give the Lord our program; I give the Lord those seats, this carpet, this platform, my ministry. I give them to You. I give the two services and the English service to the Lord. I give our income; I give the future of this Church; I give the calling of this Church; I give every aspiration to ministerial greatness to the Lord. We give it all to Him. Nothing is ours. Neither you nor I have any right to determine anything about this Congregation, because everything belongs to God. Can you say amen to that? Because everything belongs to God.

And this is a boat. Lion of Judah is a boat; this place is a boat. And the Lord wants to preach His Gospel to multitudes and says: Lion of Judah, will you lend Me your boat so that I may pull away from shore a little and preach to this lost world? And you and I must say: Lord, of course; take the boat, the oars, and also the net inside it. I give it all to You.

I invite you to give your life to the Lord this very afternoon, right now. And if there is anyone who wants to do so not only in a spiritual way—if you want to give your life to Jesus Christ and have never done so before—I invite you to do it now as well. I invite you to come forward, to raise your hand, if there is anyone who wants to do it, however God directs you. If there is anyone who wants to do it, we open this space; we want to pray for you. Do you feel that call from God?

You may raise your hand; you may stand up. I open this space here while I pray for the other brothers and sisters. I ask whether there is anyone here who has not yet given their life to the Lord—perhaps a young person full of vigor, with a future and talent—and you want to give your life to Jesus Christ, and you say to Him: Lord, with fear and trembling I give You my life. Or perhaps you are an elderly person at the end of your years and you say: You know what, Father? I understand that I have wasted my life, but today I give it to You. And I invite you to come forward, to raise your hand, however God directs you. If there is anyone who wants to do it, we open this space; we want to pray for you.

Do you feel that call from God? As we do this, if anyone feels led by the Lord to come, I also want to invite you right now. If you are a child of God, serve the Lord, and walk in His ways—come over here. Young man, are you raising your hand? Come here. Sister, go with him. Meanwhile, I know this boy; I think I have probably known you since you were born. How wonderful. Today I feel fulfilled—what a blessing—right at the beginning of his youth.

If anyone else wants to come forward, I want this to be a total surrender by all of us. There may be other people whom I believe God can bless. I declare God’s blessing over your life. I tell you that God is looking at you right now, and He is examining every movement of your heart and your emotions. He is sanctifying, blessing, releasing, and sealing every part of your being. And as you walk through this life, walk knowing that you have God’s blessing and favor in your life. He will enhance your intelligence; He will grant you great victories; He will bless you intellectually, professionally, physically, and emotionally. He will be your partner in life; He will be your manager and your trainer, and He will show you the way.

I have been where you are now, as a young boy, and I have seen the Lord bless me in extraordinary ways. He has given me the desires of my heart, and He will give them to you too if you obey Him and follow Him. So say: Jesus, take over my life. Just say that within yourself. Give your life to the Lord, as beautiful as you are. Give your life to the Lord and say: Father, I yield my life to You. I give You my future, and I want You to walk with me every day of my life. There is no greater blessing than that, I am telling you. He will make you into someone extraordinary; He will make you into someone great, powerful, and beautiful.

And through you I bless many young people in our city, in our community. Through you I bless countless students in high schools, colleges, middle schools, and kindergartens. And I bless these young people, and I declare that they belong to Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God, not to Satan. And through you I bless them as well, and I call them to come forward to be blessed, taught, and edified by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. You are a chosen generation, and I bless you in the Name of Jesus Christ.

Is there anyone else right now who wants to give their life to Jesus? I open this moment for you as well. Do not resist it; do not fight any longer. Give up Isaac, and God will give him back to you multiplied, blessed, and transformed into something glorious.

And there, Lion of Judah Congregation, I invite you to reconsecrate your life to the Lord right now, to examine every crack in your life, every compartment, every space, every object; and if it does not bear the mark that says “Kingdom of God,” put that mark on it right now. Give everything, everything, everything to the Lord: your body, your intellect, your dreams, your money, your house, your family, your spirit, your emotions, your memories. Give it all to the Lord and say: Lord, I am Yours; Yours I am. Take possession of me. Teach me how to reach another level of life. I bless you in the Name of the Lord. Amen, amen. Thank You, Lord, because You give us a new, budding harvest. It pleases You to have these new creatures, Lord, who have a long road ahead of them to walk, and to bless them. We give them to You, Lord. Thank You. And so we ask You to give us the joy of seeing hundreds of them come to Jesus Christ, Lord, and live blessed and prosperous lives. Thank You, Father.

This Church submits to You, Lord; we give You everything we have, everything we are. It is Yours, Father; glorify Yourself through it and receive this blessing, which is Yours, Lord. Thank You, thank You, Father; we worship You and bless You. People of God, stand up and surrender everything to the Lord. If you have made that covenant there, if you have made that covenant, raise your hand and give thanks to the Lord, and leave this place as a person who belongs to the Kingdom of God, to serve the Lord and give Him everything He may want from you. I bless you in the Name of the Lord. Thank You. Amen, amen.