This is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. —1 John 4:10 (NIV)
Several years ago, our son took me on a trip to the East Coast to see the leaves in the early fall, as this is a trip that I had always wanted to take. I was eating a Honeycrisp apple yesterday, and it so reminded me of my trip with my son. While Honeycrisp apples are the juiciest and most delicious apples that I have found here in Dallas, nothing can compare to the apple that I plucked right off of an apple tree at an apple tree farm in Vermont. It was late September, and the apples were ripe for the pickin’. When I bit into that apple right there on the farm, it was truly unbelievable. I had never had anything taste so good—fresh, cold, and just filled with goodness. This experience proves to me that there is nothing quite like getting something right at the source. And so it is with love. Love is from God; Love is God; he is the source of love and the original place from where love flows. How blessed are we to receive his love right from the source, from God himself. And what better love to know than the love of a Father for his children by sending his Son as a man to save us from our sins. True love from the source of love. There is no better way to have the very best than to get it at its source, filled with goodness, and this is exactly what we receive every day from our Savior.