Episode #218 Part 1: Trusting The God Who Comes Through – Names of God

Hey friends, it's Jen. Today, we're spending a few minutes getting to know God better by his reputation through one of his names.

We're going to take a look at the first time we see this name of God used in scripture, and at the same time, we're building this habit of looking for God and how he met with the living, breathing, real person that he interacted with historically.

In the past, I have often missed this opportunity. And so I viewed Bible characters like characters, even knowing that they were real. I viewed them as kind of two-dimensional placeholders in the story to teach me a lesson. We get to learn from their stories. And we get to see how God interacted with them. But that begins, not with a lesson for us, but with a real interaction that a person had with God.

Because of his love for them and how he wanted to show himself to that person too. And today we're looking at God's name Jehovah Jireh, which means the Lord will provide or the Lord will see to it.

And in the original Hebrew, Jehovah Jireh is also known as Yahweh Yireh, but in our transliteration it's become Jehovah Jireh in English. And the name is actually what Abraham names the place—the mountain—when God prevents him from sacrificing his son.

There's a quote from A. W. Tozer that says, “the true provision of God is often in the process rather than the product. In waiting on Jehovah Jireh, we learn dependence, faith, and the blessing of a relationship with the provider.”

We see the story recorded for us in Genesis chapter 22. And I'm going to skip around to some verses in the New Living Translation. And as we read these verses today, we're paying attention to God and how he interacted with Abraham. I encourage you, listen to the scripture and ask God this question:

God, what do you want to highlight to me about your relationship with Abraham?

So Isaac has been born, he's older, God speaks to Abraham, and he says, starting in verse two,

“‘Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.’ The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac.”

He chops wood for a fire, for the burnt offering, and set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day of their journey, Abraham looks up and he sees the place, and so he tells his servants, stay here with the donkey. This is in verse five,

“‘The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back.’”

As the two of them walked together, Isaac turned to Abraham and said, father we have the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?

“‘God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering, my son.’”

So they reached the place, Abraham builds the altar and arranges the wood on it. Then he ties up Isaac and lays him down on top of the wood and he picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice.

And in verse 11,

“At that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!...Don’t lay a hand on the boy! Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.’ Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’”

We're going to get into so much about what this can mean for us as modern-day believers in the next episode. But for today, I want to stay here in the story of what it meant for Abraham.

And I also think that it's worth mentioning that there's a lot that's hard about this passage. I feel like Isaac probably needed therapy after this. Maybe even Sarah and Abraham did too. This is a difficult testing, a difficult circumstance to be navigating.

But God wanted Abraham to prove that Abraham truly feared him because God gave him very clear instructions And Abraham had the choice on if he would follow them or not.

Through this whole process we got to see Abraham trust God as his provider, and then when God provided the sheep for the sacrificial offering himself, Abraham names this place as a remembrance, the Lord will provide.

Now, I don't know when the name of the place, Jehovah Jireh, became a name that we ascribe to God. But, if I think about that name in context of our relational God, in the roles that he functions in, and in his reputation, the name suits him too. The place was named after God. God, who himself saw to what he needed.

This is one of those stories that makes it super simple to reflect in gratitude for the people involved. To consider Abraham and Sarah and Isaac as if they were family friends and to thank God for being the God who comes through, the God who sees to it. and how He proved that aspect of his reputation in this circumstance with these people. And so as we close out the episode today, let's circle back to that question. I wonder what more God wants to show you about himself, about his relationship, his role, and his reputation. Let's talk with him about it:

God, what do you want to highlight to me about your relationship with Abraham?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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