Genesis 22:2 AMPC
[God] said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you "love", and go to the region of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I will tell you.
There's an old Burt Bacharach song that says "What the world needs now is love sweet love - that's the only thing that there's just too little of..." I'm sure you oldies, like me, will remember it! The song goes on to tell God what the world needs (as if He didn't know)!
Strangely enough the very first time "love" is mentioned in the Bible is in the verse above.
It's not mentioned in Creation or in the fellowship enjoyed between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden [as we so often isolate the word love to mean "romance"].
Love is mentioned in the context of Abraham offering up his special son, the son of the promise.
After waiting all those long years to have a son with Sarah, a son miraculously conceived in their twilight years, the Lord asks Abraham to give him up.
We all know what happens next (if you don't, please read on )..
The Lord provides a ram for the sacrifice.
In the end Abraham didn't have to sacrifice Isaac, so all was well for him.
Yet through this incident we see the Lord looking through the telescope to a time when He would have to offer up His only Son, the Son whom He LOVES... it would take place in that very region!
John 3:16 AMPC
For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten ( unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.
Abraham was being tested in His faith, while at the Cross, God (if you like) was being tested in His love for us.
The good news is that God, in Christ Jesus, passed the test. Love won the day and keeps on winning down through the ages into eternity.
Love is what will remain FOREVER... 1 Cor. 13:13
God's Love is what the world needs now and it is freely offered to you and me in the person of Jesus because of His most costly sacrifice.
Stand and stare anew at the Cross where God so loved YOU.
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