Through The Bible in a Year - February 24, 2026

“God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”* – Genesis 22:8

Abraham is about to sacrifice his son—the son he waitedthrough the decades of old age, the son he loved. But now God says, “Take your son, your only son whom you love” and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. What tragedy! Abraham must think this is the consequence of all his failings.

This is the ordinary expectation of humanity: You mess up, you pay up. Fix your wrongs, or pay your dues. You are the one who must make things right with God through your sacrifice.

Yet, when Abraham’s son, Isaac, asks, “Where is the lamb” we are supposed to sacrifice? Abraham speaks more than he understands: “God will provide for himself the lamb.”

God will provide what He requires. That’s the core definition of grace.

God requires holiness—entire, complete, perfect holiness. “Be holy for I am holy.” How can we do that? We can’t. But God provides what we cannot.

God’s provision is not through your measuring up. Not your extraordinary works. Not a sacrifice of the fruit of your body for the sin of your soul. God provides the lamb. For all of us, he ultimately provides the Lamb of God, Jesus, who takes away the sin of the world.

This is the first explicit mention of substitutionary sacrifice in the Bible: Instead of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son, God says he will provide the sacrifice, and we know it will ultimately be his Son. God provides Jesus for us.

Two thousand years later, Jesus carries wood on His back to the same mountain and offers Himself for your sin and mine. Through it all God is saying, “I told you I would provide.”

Respond: What are you trying to sacrifice to make yourself right with God? What measuring up, what good works, what religious activity? Today, stop, trusting what sacrifice you can make to make things right with God. Trust what God provides instead.

Prayer: Father, forgive me for trying to earn what You freely give. I cannot provide enough sacrifice to make things right with you. I cannot measure up. I cannot be holy enough. But You provide what You require. Thank You for the Lamb. Thank You for Jesus who paid it all. I trust in the sufficiency of His provision. In His name, amen.