Because He First Loved Us

What does it mean that we love because God first loved us? We can say, “Since God is love, we have to receive that love from God in order to love,” easily enough. What does that really mean, though?

1 John 4:7-21 gives us one of the most insightful explanations of love found in the Bible; however, “love,” like any word repeated over and over again, has lost its meaning today.

Think of what love has meant to you over the years of your life. As children, love means hugs and kisses, being picked up when we fall, being carried when we’re tired, and being reassured when we’re frightened. We search out that comfort.

As we move into our teens, love becomes an intoxicating feeling: something that so powerfully draws us to another person that we have a hard time thinking of it as an emotion. We search out that passion.

Later in life, we begin to develop our own personal understandings of love. It’s often a combination of those two previous thoughts. We throw in a dash of “compromising” and a sprinkling of “putting others first,” and think we have a decent idea of what it means to love. We search out common understanding.

Then, one day, we see love face-to-face. For many of us it happens when we have children and realize, in an instant, that we would sacrifice our entire worlds for that life. Other times we realize that someone gave up his or her life-long dream to care for us. Every so often it happens when someone literally dies to give another life.

When we look at the character of God, Who is love, we see that He gave Himself, He gave freely, He gave unconditionally, and He gave without return. (John 3:16, Matthew 10:8, Romans 5:8, Luke 6:27)

Comfort, passion, community: these are merely byproducts. Love itself is giving without conditions, without recompense, without fear, and without caution.

“We love because he first loved us.” If love were not given us, our love would be nothing more than feelings and gestures.

Do not even begin to think that your “love” can even begin to compare with real love. Finding true love, means seeking after God. Nothing and no one can compare with true love found.

Discussion points:

What differences do you notice between real love and the love we are taught by the world around us?

What is the most powerful picture of love you have seen in your life?

What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself?

Why would God show us love when we have nothing to offer in return?

How do we show the love of God to others? How do we find it ourselves?