First Love

First love. As cute as this picture is, I’m not talking about the kind you write about in your diary and draw hearts around. I am using the phrase as John meant it when he wrote: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). John reminds us that the reason we are to love others is completely wrapped up in the love of Christ, which sought us out when we least deserved it. In loving us, God took the initiative. He first loved us.

As an adverb, “first” means “before all others or anything else in time, order, rank, etc” and “in preference to something else; rather; sooner.” So, applied to this concept of first loving: God loved us before all others or anything else in time, order, or rank. God loved us in preference to the satisfaction of his perfect judgment. Rather than destroy us for our sin, God loves us—enough to send himself to bear the wrath we deserve. God’s love precedes and precipitates our salvation.

As Christians, we are not only to receive the saving grace of Christ, but in imitating Him, we are to share it with others. As Jesus loves, so we are to love. This means we must love others first. We cannot wait until we “hear the call” to love that crotchety neighbor, or the coworker you try to avoid at all costs: we have already heard it from Christ himself. Telling the story of the Good Samaritan, who took initiative to put love in action for a stranger, Jesus pleads, “Go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). Loving others first means that we place them before ourselves in time, order, and rank. We must love quickly, and we must love humbly.

Perhaps the biggest temptation as we seek to love others—though we’d never admit it—is to wait to act out love to the other until we feel that they are within the realm of deserving such love. This is not only selfish, but hypocritical. How can I, a sinner who has received undeserved love from Christ, deny this love to my neighbor? We need to fix our eyes upon God himself, “who demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Loving first is a tall order. Loving as Christ loved is one even taller. After all, we are not perfect as Christ was perfect. But we are called to try anyway:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

As Christians we are to be known by our love, the ultimate signature of our Lord of first love. How can we love first today?