"We ourselves are loving, because He Himself first loved us."
-First place. Who doesn’t love to be first? To go first? If it’s about serving me-myself-and-I, taking care of number one, we don’t need any help with that. Nobody needs to tell me to put myself first - it comes naturally, doesn’t it? We’re wired this way from the womb. Serving the threefold self. But this is different. This is the other kind of going first - putting others first. Going first in loving and serving them, in meeting their needs. That’s what God did. He first loved us. He went first. He couldn’t help Himself, in fact, because that’s Who He is. And He’s always loved us, from before He made us and before the dawn of time - everlasting love (Jeremiah 31.1). Before He formed us, He knew us and loved us and had wonderful glorious plans for us, for us to experience His breathtaking goodness and love. But this is also as much a function of Who He wasn’t. He went first because He wasn’t first. First place in our hearts - that’s His place. That’s what He deserves - and wants. "You will have no other gods before Me." First Commandment. Love the Lord with all your heat. And that’s what we needed, for Him to go first, because all of us, we didn't put Him first. We have all put other things in His place. Idolatry in its simplest form. Devoting oneself to that which is no deity. Vanity. Emptiness. Life lived without God in first place is second rate, worse than that actually - it is a one-way ticket to death. And because He was not first, He went first. And He loved us. From the first. He went first, saying, "you first..."
-He Himself. John is emphasizing this. This isn’t some Johnny-come-lately we’re talking about here. No fly-by-night penny-ante operator. We’re talking about almighty God, He Who created the universe and everything which is in it. God, this One we kicked out, is the One Who loved us, made the first move, loved us first. So loved us, He did. The unlovely, the unloveable, He did - and because He did, now can we. We can love. And isn’t that the way of things - the unlovely, unloveable is transformed by someone actually loving them? Yes, and now we love, we live and breathe and walk in love. His love! We experience God’s boundless endless love for us, and it courses through our lives and hearts and flows out to a lost and dying world. A healing salve for the nations, mending broken hearts and broken lives and so much more. God loves you. He so loves you, warts and all. Me too. He has always loved us. Now let’s get up and get going and be the people of love He has loved us to be. We can't technically go first anymore since the Lord already did that, but let's you and me be second at going first and saying to one another and others, "you first!"
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