Articles
"We Love Him Because He First Loved Us"
We love Him because He first loved us. (1 Jn 4:19)
Newer versions abbreviate this by dropping “Him”: “We love, because He first loved us” (NAS). John has much to say about love in this short epistle. It is a quality he had to learn himself, being one of the “sons of thunder” who had callously called for the obliteration of an entire Samaritan village (Lk 9:54).
But we all have much to learn about love, and it begins with our Heavenly Father: “He first loved us.” His love for us remained intact through our rebellion, idolatry and blasphemy. He endured patiently with those who hated Him even as He unfolded a plan to save them. We didn’t understand what He was doing or even why we needed His help to be saved.
The Scriptures teach us that this love of God finally culminated in the sacrifice of His Son in our place; i.e., to pay the death-penalty that rightfully belonged to us due to our sin. God’s love for us was undeserved, patient, kind and generous, thus setting the standard of love that we should aspire to.
We should love Him, and we should love others, because it is the only reasonable response to love so magnificently shown to us. We cannot morally and consistently receive that love without it changing us and then emanating from us to others.
