Revealed: Week 10 // Section Three: Love // First Up
Day One
I had trouble deciding how to start this section on Love. Should I start at the end or from the beginning? Theoretically? Etymologically? In keeping with the premise of this study, I decided to look at how love was first revealed in scripture. I was reminded of something truly wonderful. The first mention of love in the Bible occurs between God, Abraham, and Isaac. In this terrible yet beautiful, if I may, account of worship and faith, we see a foreshadowing of love’s pinnacle moment in history.
God said, “Abraham!” and he replied, “Here I am.” God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering…” Genesis 22:1-2. Abraham gathers everything he needs and leaves with his Isaac, his only son whom he loves, for Moriah. On the mountain he builds the altar. He prepares the sacrifice—his only son, whom he waited 100 years to hold and father. I can only imagine that every day of the journey must have felt like a thousand years: the wood becoming heavier with every step up the mountain. With unwavering faith and devoted love to God, Abraham reaches for the knife. Finally—finally, God calls his name again, “Abraham, Abraham!” “Here I am,” Abraham responds again. God says, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him.” When Abraham looks up, he sees a ram caught in the thicket by his horns, God’s provision. And he offers up the provided ram as the sacrifice that day.
Ages later, God sends his only son, whom he loves, to the world as the sacrifice that fulfills prophecies and the law. Through the thicket of sin and deception, pride and shame, Love calls our name. The Lamb of God, whom God loved before the foundations of the world (John 17:24), is right there waiting for us. He takes our place, bears our sin so that we can live. Why? Jesus explains to an inquisitive Nicodemus, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him (John 3:16-17).
Can you hear the Father’s voice today calling your name? “Adrienne, Adrienne!” If we look up we will find that God’s provision has made its way to us. His love knows where to find us and exactly how to reach us.
This week, as you read the following daily scriptures, listen for the Father’s voice calling your name. If you look up you will find that God’s provision has made its way to us. His love knows where to find us and exactly how to reach us.
Day Two
John 17:24 & 26
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world…I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
Day Three
1 John 3:1 & 16
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
Day Four
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Day Five
Psalm 90:14-16
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
Day Six
Jeremiah 31:2-4
…when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built…
Day Seven
Selah
Brave Sparrow 