Do you know how great acts of faith are accomplished? Genesis 20-23

Genesis 22:7-10 (NASBStr)

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?” Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.

 Then they came to the place of which God 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. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

The story of Abraham offering his son Isaac on the alter is one of the most powerful stories of faith in the Bible.   Many people struggle with the fact that a father would even dare do such an act to a young boy.  The human mind can't understand it.    In our flesh we debate how any father could attempt to offer his son on a alter.  In today's world it would be reported on the news networks and the world would recoil in disgust with such a person.   And, today they should.   Because today no one is given the same promises as Abraham.   The reason Abraham was able to do such a thing is because he had a unique promise from God that God was going to bless his family and all of mankind, through Isaac.   Note what the writer of Hebrews says about this story:

Hebrews 11:17-19 (NASBStr)

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.

Abraham, in the flesh, must have struggled like most of us had struggled.  And, in the past, his fear had many times caused him to act without God, failing to believe God.   Yet, this time Abraham would live not by flesh but by faith.   Abraham believed God's promise that through Isaac the world would be blessed. Therefore he calculated that if that was the promise of God and God was asking him to offer his son on the alter, then God must be going to raise him from the dead ... that would be the only logical conclusion.   Faith, here, in this story, is used to calculate a response towards God's plan.   Faith is not simply a feeling of fatality.   Faith is know the promises of God and the character of God and adding up the two to realize God can not go back on His promises.  That means their is only something special left.   Faith is taking God at His Word and believing it and realizing that God will do something quite different than we expect in our flesh.