The following is a paraphrase of a message proclaimed last night at college worship:

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In the book of Genesis we find Abraham and Sarah, very advanced in age, and Sarah, after years of barrenness bears Isaac... and one day (Ch. 22) this dialogue takes place:

"Abraham"
"Yes, here I am"
"Take some wood up to the hillside with your son Isaac and sacrifice him to me"

So Abraham does as God commands, and takes Isaac up to the mountain to kill him, and just as he's about to drop the knife into Isaac's scared, young, bound up body, an angel of God appears and tells him not to kill Isaac.
God tells Abraham that he knows that he fears him because he was willing to give up his beloved, only son to God. A ram appears caught in the bushes nearby, and Abraham burns it in Isaac's place on the altar.

The point I'm trying to get at is what is it that God is asking you to sacrifice for Him? What are the beloved things that you can lay upon His Altar and do without, the things that keep you distant from God? Maybe you could not watch that movie but spend some time in prayer and reading the word instead...

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The point the speaker makes is a sort of bad analogy, and I'm struggling to find the real NT equivalent to help back it up... perhaps it's to do with what it says in the gospels about taking up our crosses, about losing our own lives for the sake of the Gospel message, for the sake of Christ (Mark 8:31-38). Or as Paul says, about being transformed by the Holy Spirit and not conforming to the standards of evil in this world (Romans 12:1-3)...

Perhaps it's really that just as the ram took Isaac's place on the altar, so too has the blameless Christ taken our place on the Cross, for our sins, and that's the simplicity of the Gospel, that we cannot earn our way or do anything that will please God without repentance and putting our faith in the Work of Christ...

Thoughts please.