I am writing today from cold and freezing, beautiful Tulsa.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16 NKJV

For years I always pictured Jesus as the one making all the sacrifices when He came to earth, and lived and died for us, while the Father just stayed up in heaven and watched. I never realized that it was the Father who was making the greatest sacrifice. That is until one night many years ago, when I got a call from my mother. A young man in his 30’s who was very dear to our family, had just died from a heart disease. He was waiting on a heart transplant, which did not arrive in time. As my mother was telling me all this, she started crying and telling me how she wished she could have just given him her own heart. She said as she sobbed, “I have already lived me life, and he had a young family, why couldn’t I have just given him my heart!” I sat stunned on the other end of the line, thinking, “because you are my mother! That’s why! No way would we let you do that!” 

When I hung up the phone, that is when I realized for the first time, that our heavenly Father was not just simply watching His Son make all the sacrifices. It was actually the Father who was making the greatest sacrifice in allowing all this to happen to His Son. Many of us would rather suffer than to see our family suffer. While the angels longed to rescue Jesus from this cruel world, I imagine the Father would rather have traded place with Him, but that was not the plan.

I see adds where a family is having to move to another city and can’t take their dog for whatever reason.  They have to leave the dog behind.The adds read that they want to make sure their dog goes to a good home. They want it to be well taken care of. If people want their dogs to be well taken care of, then don’t you imagine the Father wanted His Son to be well taken care of? Yet there are dogs who have been treated better than the way Jesus was treated. How this must have hurt the Father, yet He did it because of His love for you! He gave His precious Son to ransom you from the power of sin and the grave. How much He must love us!

The heart of God yearns over His earthly children with a love stronger than death. In giving up His Son, He has poured out to us all heaven in one gift.
Through that gift there comes to us day by day the unfailing flow of Jehovah’s goodness. Every flower, with its delicate tints and sweet fragrance, is given for our enjoyment through that one Gift. The sun and moon were made by Him; there is not a star that beautifies the heavens which He did not make. There is not an article of food upon our tables that He has not provided for our sustenance. The superscription of Christ is upon it all. Everything is supplied to man through the one unspeakable Gift, the only-begotten Son of God. He was nailed to the cross that all these bounties might flow to God’s workmanship.
In taking our nature, the Saviour has bound Himself to humanity by a tie that is never to be broken. Through the eternal ages He is linked with us. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.” He gave Him not only to bear our sins, and to die as our sacrifice; He gave Him to the fallen race. To assure us of His immutable counsel of peace, God gave His only-begotten Son to become one of the human family, forever to retain His human nature. This is the pledge that God will fulfill His word. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder.” Isaiah 9:6. God has adopted human nature in the person of His Son, and has carried the same into the highest heaven. . . . Heaven is enshrined in humanity, and humanity is enfolded in the bosom of Infinite Love.
Christ bowed down in unparalleled humility, that in His exaltation to the throne of God, He might also exalt those who believe in Him, to a seat with Him upon His throne. –Ellen White, The Faith I Live by, Page 45.