We Can Love Because He First Loved Us

By Pastor Mike Harding

The Bible says that “we love God, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) Is that your story? It can be.

Do you know that you were created and designed for love? God made you in His own image to have a beautiful relationship with Him, to give and receive love. (Genesis 1:26-28) The Bible says that God is love. (1 John 4:8, 16) He is holy, He is just, He is all-powerful, but His nature and His essence is love. So He created and designed you for love. Just as a car was designed to run on fuel, you were designed to run on love. Your body needs food, but your spirit, your soul, needs love. With love, you thrive, you grow, you succeed. Without love, you dry up spiritually and emotionally.

Why do we get married? We want someone to love, and to love us in return. Why do we have children? We want to pour our love into them, and have them love us back. Why do we seek friendship? We want to build relationships that will last, where love will grow. That’s why God created you. He wanted to pour His love into you. He wanted you to love Him in return. He wanted relationships that would last forever. (Jeremiah 31:3)

But mankind turned their backs on God early on. Genesis, the first book of the Bible, shows how man chose independence and separation over a loving relationship with a holy God. We might call it rebellion. God calls it sin. The human race was separated from the life of God and from the love of God by our own independence, by our own choice. Just as a branch cut off from the life giving flow of the vine begins to shrivel and die, mankind has become just a shadow of what we were meant to be. We were meant to be good, to be holy and just, to be full of love and joy and God-given nobility. Cut off by our own sin from the flow of God’s love, we are a shadow of what we were meant to be. We are the branch that separated itself from the vine.

Many people are suffering a love deficit - a shortage. Without God, we are cut off from the original source of love. We feel the loss, the emptiness. Many parents don’t know how to love their own children. Maybe they didn’t receive love themselves. You can’t offer what you don’t have. You can’t give what you never received. Generation after generation, people feel the emptiness, the woundedness, the search. Do you?

Jesus came to reconnect you to God. Jesus said, “I came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10) That’s you! Jesus said, “I am the door - if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved.” (John 10:9) What did He mean? A door has two sides, because it is a passageway between two places. Jesus is God on one side and man on the other. He is the only door between Heaven and earth; He is the only One that bridged the separation. He is God. He came from Heaven to become a man, to become one of us. He opened the door for us to return to God. To forgive us and to cleanse us from our sin, He died in our place, pouring out His life - his blood - on a Roman cross as the just payment for our sin. Only He could do that. Only the Innocent One could qualify to redeem us, to save us. “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved!” (Romans 10:9-10) After he was crucified, He rose from the dead to become our King. (Revelation 19:16) “Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (Philippians 2:10-11) He will return and reign forever with those who accept Him as Savior and Lord.

How about your broken heart? How about the emptiness you feel inside? God wants to love you. He aches to pour His healing love into you, to revive you and restore you. He longs to receive you as His child. He draws you with His Spirit, with the message of this Good News. He asks you to come to Him through the open door, through Jesus Christ His Son. Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father, except through Me.” (John 14:6) Jesus said, “Come to Me.” (Matthew 11:28)

When you return to God, He will begin to pour His love into you. If your heart has been like a desert, a dry place without love, God will begin to rain on you - with His love! He doesn’t ask you to become religious. He doesn’t ask you to be good enough for Him. He just wants to save you and love you and heal you and restore you. Then you will be what He wants you to be!! Then you will say, “I love Him, because He first loved me!”  (1 John 4:19) Please run into God’s open arms right now - come to Him through that open door by saying this prayer:

“God, I come to You now.  I come through the open door, Jesus Christ Your Son,

who died for me on the cross, who paid for my sins, and who rose from the dead.

God, please come into my life. Begin to pour Your love into my heart. Fill me with Your love, heal me and restore me to a beautiful relationship with You. In Jesus’ name. Amen!”