09/03/3021
Have you ever not liked someone from the very moment you met them? Did you somehow sense that they were bad, did you think that you were incompatible, or maybe that there was something about them which was too much like yourself… some part of you that you didn’t like too much? Well God could have disliked us for all of these same reasons, and yet He loved us instead, and we should love others just as He first loved us… just because.
“We love because he first loved us.”
1 John 4:19 ESV
When we love something or someone for no apparent reason other than just because, it is a bit of God’s nature bubbling up in us. As a matter of fact all the love we have comes from Him. It is interesting that the Bible never tells us not to love too much, or not at all, but over and over again we are told, and taught to love… God commands us to love Him with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength… He tells us to love ourselves, He tells us to love our wives, one another, our neighbors, our enemies, with all our heart… time after time we are told to love.
“In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,”
Ephesians 5:28-29 ESV
I am certain that when each of us first realized God, that we were far from worthy of His love. We were somewhat like Him, but He was without blemish and we were not, we were marred by sin and weren’t Holy as He was, and His very perfection irritated us because it was something we didn’t have. These are also things that should have made us unlovable in God’s eyes… yet He loved us in spite of them. God sees the good in us… all of us, and there is not one of us that can say that we loved Him first. To test this ask yourself a simple question “Did I love everyone before I came to know God, or Jesus?”. If honest you will respond “No”.
“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.”
1 John 4:20 ESV
Do you love everyone now? Unlike us God sees our hearts, our souls, our innermost selves. He sees the sin which has made a nest there, and He sees the good that he originally made is still there too. We see the manifestation of sin in ourselves, and in one another and it influences us; leading us to dislike and hate, but God sees that part of us that He created when He first formed man… that part that was meant to love and worship Him… He sees our heart in all of its magnificence, and wonder, and longs for it to be made pure once again. He loves us first, and He loves us completely.
“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.””
1 Samuel 16:7 ESV
So God loved us first, and He loved us so much that He made a plan from the beginning of creation to remove the darkness of sin from us through Christ Jesus. From the moment of our creation He never knew a time when He didn’t love us, and yet there was a time when we did not know him, and thus did not love Him as we should have. Jesus, on the other hand, loves us as God loves Him, and we are meant to share in that same love; we are to abide in the love of Christ. In this way He will have freed us of sin, and taught us to love again.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”
John 15:9 ESV
God’s Word leads us, and teaches us much, but there is one understanding, and two lessons on which all the others are built. The understanding is that God loves us in spite of ourselves, even when we were stained by sin, and the two lessons are to first love Him, and then to love one another. So, are we ready for the lessons of love to truly take hold of our hearts and change, and transform us, back into who we were meant to be when we took the first breath of life? Are we ready to love unconditionally… just because… and to be made perfect as God is perfect… in love?
“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:46-48 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for giving us your love, and making a place for it within us where that love will grow, and lead us to love as you love. Thank you Father for seeing us without sin, in the fullness of love, and then making a way for us, through Jesus, and your grace that flows through Him, to become perfected in that love as you are. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who loves us without reservation. Praised be your name for every moment we stand in the warm light of your radiant love, and reflect it onto the fallen world in which we live. You are merciful and good Lord, and see our heart for what it will become in Christ, and not what it was when our eyes were first opened to you. Help us to love ourselves, our neighbors, enemies, and all those around us, but help us most to love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Help us to love you as you so loved the world. Father, wash us clean of sin with the blood of Jesus who shed it in both perfect obedience, and perfect love, so that we would be redeemed from our sin, and given eternity in your presence. Seat us at your table as your loving children, and love us perfectly for all eternity.
““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
John 3:16-17 ESV
Rich Forbes