1 John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us.”

Quite a simple verse isn’t it!

And yet in it is a most profound of Biblical truths that can take a lifetime to only being to fully grasp.

We love God, because he first loved us. Hopefully you love God, many say they do!

In the book of Matthew chapter 22, a smarty pants lawyer hopped up and asked Jesus a question about the law of God “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”

Lawyers of all people are meant to know law! And somehow this man thought he could potentially trip up the Lord Jesus by tangling him up in matters pertaining to the law of God with such a question.

But Jesus answered him and told him that the greatest law is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”

And we know that with this answer, Jesus was referencing this first and great commandment found in Deuteronomy 6:5.

And this is a good law! In fact it is the preeminent law from which all other commandments of God flow. If you get this one down, the rest will be a cinch.

And yet the rest is far from a cinch! And we fail at the rest, because we fail spectacularly at this one… if we are being honest that is.

If we truly loved God, the Christian life would be totally different… every other commandment of God for us wouldn’t be such a drudge and drear if we just loved him.

In recent times, when I’ve thought about this first and great commandment, I realized it is a little bit strange though. Imagine telling someone that they have to love you!!

And that’s what God does, it is a commandment after all!

But would any of us want a relationship where someone only loves us because we told them to?

… Wouldn’t we want them to love us because they chose to?

Well, God does also! And so while this commandment is good, right, and true and the basis for the Christian life… where this love flows from isn’t so much because he told us we have to love him… it’s through the love he first showed to us.

Why do I love Jesus? Yes, the commandment to is good… but I love him because he first loved me. God sent his Son to die for my sins. He’s made a place for me in heaven. He never leaves me or forsakes me. He did all that while I didn’t care for him.

I didn’t have love to give until his love changed my life forever.

This law was impossible, and could only really show how little love we have…

… It was the advent of Christ that totally transformed and fulfilled this law, and that’s why the apostle John could later write this “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning.”

Because in 1 John there’s a slightly confusing part about the fact he’s writing a new commandment, but not, but is… but it’s because this first and great law is an old law but a new law, but an old law.

May God change your life with his love… the Bible says his love is unsearchable… you’ll never have it all figured out… but now is as good a time as any to start that glorious journey of discovery!

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