vday2

I looked up the word “love” in my Bible today and found the first mention in Genesis 22. Not the love of a husband for a wife, a mother for a child, or even a friend for a friend, but the love of a father for his only son.

The story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 is a familiar one. So familiar to some of us that we can read it and not weep. It’s because we know the end of the story, don’t we? As this father stretched forth his hand, with the blade pointed at his son, a last-moment reprieve from heaven stopped the horrific act.

If you have a child, you can understand the invisible chain that forever attaches your heart to theirs. When they are happy, you are happy. When they cry, you cry.

This request that God made to His friend had to seem incomprehensible and understandably impossible for a father to fulfill. It would have been far easier for Abraham to have offered his own life as a substitute for Isaac. And yet he, in determined obedience, took painful step after painful step toward that dreadful moment of sacrifice.

One can only guess what must have gone through his mind that morning when he saddled his donkey and headed for the mountains. But ultimately, the sacrifice would suddenly be called off, and Abraham would return home with his boy.

This story is a picture of love. The love of a father for a son, the greater love of a father for his God. It is also a picture that foreshadowed God the Father’s sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary. God’s heart would break and all heaven would cry, as Jesus willingly gave His life as a substitute for ours.

Herein is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10 KJV)

This Valentine’s Day, we should remember and linger as we savor the sweetness of His love, a love that is sweeter than any Valrhona chocolate. Why, we ask, would He do this for us? One word—love.

God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJV)