We Love Because He First Loved Us

Something that has been on my mind a lot this past week is the incredible love of God!  I know, this should be on my heart every day of every week!  It is true that I frequently see the love of God and His amazing grace throughout my life, but I wanted to share with you one specific aspect that I have been reflecting on.  

I have often thought of the verse: "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19) to mean, "we should love, taking the model that Jesus has given us".  However, as I have reflected on this more this week, I find that it means something more foundational.  If we are able to love God and others at all, it is because God loved us, and enabled us to love others and Himself.  

The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind, and the second is to love our neighbors as ourselves (see, for example, Luke 10:27).  So, how are we doing at that?  

Tim Keller, in a sermon that I listened to recently, shed some light on what it is to love with our heart.  He said that it is the thing to which our heart is inclined.  The place that our thoughts and affections go when we have nothing else that we need to think about (or, sometimes even when we should be thinking about something else!).  Do we love God that way?  Do we daydream about Him and how we could better show our love for Him by our service?  Are we, like the psalmist David, thinking about Him when we wake up in the night and throughout the day?  Or do other thoughts and dreams occupy our waking and sleeping?  Maybe we don't love and desire the Lord as much as we would like to think.  

How are we doing on loving others?  Do we want them to have the same joys and comforts that we do ... even if it means sacrifice on our part?  Do we love enough to release our pride and overlook an offense?  To even forgive freely?  Do we love them enough to show up on time to events?  To listen when we would rather be heard?  To be overlooked while they are exalted?  Maybe we don't love others as much as we would like to think.  

And I submit that even knowing of God's love as a model is not enough to generate this love in us.  We love because God gave us a new heart that is capable of loving.  And even so, we don't love perfectly on this side of Heaven.  But, for those of us who have been transformed by the love of God, we are beginning to show the fruits of love of even now.  When our mind is set on Christ and things above; when we efface ourselves and forgive others; when we work for the good of others with no one to witness it; then, we are beginning to see the evidence of a heart of flesh.  Then, we are beginning to love because He first loved us.