“In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)
In the beginning was God. God is love. In the beginning of all creation was Love.
Yet God goes back, way back before there was a beginning. This confounds my children: “Dad, you know what’s really hard to get? That God has always been there.” Love has always been there.
God loved before we loved Him. God loved after we stopped loving Him. God loved us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8), haters (1:30) and enemies of Him (5:10). We were loved before we loved, so that we might always know that being loved by God doesn’t depend upon our loving Him.
We love Him now because He loved us then (1 John 4:19). God’s love for us depends entirely upon the propitiation of Jesus - His wrath-absorbing death. If Jesus had not died and taken our place and judgment, we could not have life and be forgiven and welcomed through Him into the perfect love of God. God is love.
“In this is love, not that we have loved God...” God doesn’t match His love to your love - dollar for dollar, deed for deed, thought for thought, affection for affection, etc. What a weak, poor, limited love that would be! His love is unlimited!
When Jesus asked Peter for the third time, “Peter, do you love me?”, Peter was grieved. Maybe, remembering his betrayal of Jesus, he considered his love to be unworthy of Jesus. Yet he appealed to something other than his own efforts. He saw beyond his denial, beyond himself, to something not of himself - something in his heart that was undeniably true. “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” (John 21:15-17)
Jesus knows all things. He knows that my love for Him is imperfect and my love for others is, too. He knows that my love for Him doesn’t meet my expectations nor live up to my zealous standards. He knows that from one moment to the next, I can go from praying to sleeping. He knows my thoughts wander and my words slip. He knows... but He knows that I love Him.
Imperfect is an earthly adjective, and the more I come to realize my imperfect love for Him on earth, the more I come to treasure His perfect love for me in Heaven. Because, ultimately, His love for me doesn’t depend upon my unfailing, unending love for Him. Rather, my love for Him depends upon His unfailing, unending love for me.
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