by Collective on Youversion

We Love Because He First Loved Us

1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.

The most perplexing thing about God is not that He is omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent. Since He is God, these virtues are somehow given or expected. Otherwise, He wouldn’t be known as God.

The thing that is the hardest to comprehend is that though He is so powerful and almighty, He is also love! Through the tainted lenses of how we see our world, power and love don’t seem to jive.

You cannot be powerful and loving at the same time. You must be either one. But our God is both. The extent of His love is fully expressed in the father’s unconditional love.

Therefore, as children of God, we love because love comes from God. And we can love because He first loved us. Knowing this helps us understand that this love does not originate from us.

It is not something birthed out of a desire within us, rather it is a new revelation of where this love comes from.

Now that we know where this love comes from, we have a new responsibility. Because no one has seen God, loving people can become a way for people to see God, through us.

So when we choose to love, others will see and experience God through us, knowing that God is living in us, and His love is made complete in us.

Loving others is not an emotional decision. Rather, it is a spiritually convicted decision. It is now our duty of care as followers of Christ to show others this dimension of love.

Remember, we love because He first loved us!

Reflection:
This love that we now have is one birthed out of the revelation of who God is. Armed with this truth, who do you want to love and how do you plan on doing that?

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

1 John 4:7-21