We love Him because He first loved us.
— 1 John 4:19 (NKJ)
This is an amazing verse because the emphasis is not on my love, but on the reason I am able to love. Because . . . God loves me. Most of the messages I heard growing up were about how I needed to love God more and love others more. So if I didn’t show my love for God by “doing something for Him”, I felt less than.
The preacher would say, “Come on, you gotta love God more”. And oh, how I wanted to do that! I wanted God to be pleased with me. So I would cry out, “Help me to love you more. I want to love you more”. My desire has always been to do what He said – to have Him pleased with me. (At that time, I didn’t know He already was and is.)
When I began to hear messages on how much God loves me, my flesh rebelled and told my mind that I was unworthy of His love. I would tell myself that Jesus died for me and that was love. My thoughts would agree and then tell me, but now you must earn His love.
I even thought 1John 4:18 which says “Perfect love casts out fear” was talking about my love being perfect and I knew I was a long way from that. These thoughts brought condemnation and confusion, not peace.
Through the Holy Spirit, I began to see that I could never love God or others by trying. God IS love and when I accept His love, I am filled with all His fullness (Ephesians 3:18-19). When that happens, His love in me flows out to Him and others.
The enemy tricked me into putting the emphasis on my love when all along it should be on His love for me. As I allowed my imagination to see Him reaching down, taking my hand and saying, “I want to be with you. I want to spend time with you. I want you to know that you are my beloved. You are in Me and I am in you. You are fully accepted by Me”. Tears streamed down my face as I sensed and felt His love.
No longer did I have to muster up love to give out. You remember the song we sang as a child “O, how I love Jesus”? Well, I added a couple of verses to it. Verse 1 goes like this: “O, how the Father loves me . . . He gave up His only Son”. Verse 2 – “O, how Jesus loves me . . . He died to set me free.” Verse 3 – “And that’s why I love Jesus, that’s why I love Jesus . . . because He first loved me!”
Interestingly, when I first began to sing these verses with Christians, I could sense their uncomfortableness. Why? Like me, they felt unworthy and heard the enemy saying, “you got it all wrong, you gotta sing about your love for Him”. That’s a lie and deception. We have to know and experience His love before we can give it out.
I encourage you to sing these words out loud. Declare God’s truth. Shout them. He loves you outrageously!
“Keep yourself in the love of God”
Truth Is Truth