Love

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (I John :16)

It is said that love makes the world go round.  People must believe it, because this week we will celebrate Valentine Day.  Boxes of chocolates and bouquets of roses will fly off the shelves and out the door.  Are you aware that one of the most spoken words in our English language is the word “love.”  “I love your dress.”  “I love what you’ve done with your hair.”  “I love that actor.”  I could go on and on, but you and I have probably piled up more sentences with the word love in them than we can possibly count. 

So, with Valentine Day just around the corner, let’s have a little lesson on the word love in scripture.  First, the word love in the Hebrew is ahavah.  And if I were to ask you whose love the bible first refers to, I am certain you would tell me it refers to God’s love.  But what if I told you that would not be accurate.  In fact, the word for love first appears in Genesis 22:2.  God said to Abraham, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love (ahavah), Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering.”  So, love is first presented in the bible as the love between a father and his son.  In fact, this is the first love in the universe.  This then is the love that makes all other loves possible.  Love between a husband and wife.  Love between siblings.  Love between friends.

And what sort of love was that first love between Abraham and his son?  It was a sacrificial love.  A love that did not demand anything but rather gave everything.  It was a love that did not need or require anything.  It was a love that did not give in order to get back.  That first love in the bible is what love is truly about.  The pure love between a father, Abraham, and his son, Isaac.  A love based on absolute faith in God that He would provide a sacrificial substitution for his son.  And God did, by sending a ram whose horns were caught in the thicket.  A substitution to be the sacrifice for Abraham’s son.

Now we know that the first time the word love (ahavah) appears in scripture it is connected to sacrifice.  Of course it is, because isn’t that really the ultimate theme of the bible?   The sacrifice of God’s one and only Son to be the love gift from the Father for us.  But besides being the recipients of this love, we are also to be the givers of this sacrificial love.  Givers of the fruits of love, through our kindness, our encouragement to others, our sacrificial giving.  For you see, the thing about God’s love is that it is continually giving.  So as we focus on Valentine Day this week, let us ask ourselves who we can show our love to.

                                                      Darlene