Remembering God Loved Us First
Your Nightly Prayer for Jan. 3, 2025
By Lynette Kittle
TONIGHT'S SCRIPTURE
“We love because He first loved us”--1 John 4:19
SOMETHING TO PONDER
To be loved for no apparent reason and for nothing we’ve done on our own, has a way of touching our hearts in ways hard to describe. Like meeting someone who just seems to love and accept us at first sight, unsolicited love draws us into it and opens up our hearts to love back.
Being loved first has a way of drawing even the most hardened heart to respond and return love. Because it does, God initiated love in this world, reaching out and loving us first, knowing we wouldn’t be able to reach out and love Him on our own because of sin’s deep hold on our hearts.
John 3:16 describes the greatness of His love. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Often, individuals miss that it’s God loving us that has drawn us to love Him, thinking in the Apostle Peter fashion, they would have chosen to love Him regardless of whether or not He loved us first. But we needed His love to reach out to us because sin restrains us from being able to love God first.
Because love in our culture and world today has taken on many meanings, most of which look nothing like having the love that comes from God but rather are counterfeit imitations filled with lustful emotions, selfishness, and self-serving.
In contrast, the love that comes from God is patient, kind, not self-seeking or easily angered; it doesn’t keep account of wrongs against it or take pleasure in evil but rejoices in truth, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things. Most importantly, God’s love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
Even more, God’s love saves us, as Romans 5:8 explains, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
God’s love stepped in and provided a way of Salvation for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. As 1 John 4:10 describes, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Through God’s love, we receive not only freedom from our debt of sin but also new and everlasting life.
YOUR NIGHTLY PRAYER
Dear Father,
Our hearts are full of gratitude for remembering how You loved us first, softening our hearts and enabling us to love You and to love others. In the coming year, lead us to reach out and love others first, expecting nothing in return but to share Your love with those around us. As we do, Lord, we ask that You guide us in conveying Your love in a way that leads others to know You.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
THREE THINGS TO MEDITATE UPON
1. As God leads us, let’s purposefully step out of our comfort zones to love individuals who seem unhappy and difficult to be around.
2. Let’s trust God enough to make the first move in loving someone, knowing it’s the start of expressing His love to them and that He can work through our small attempts to draw individuals closer to Himself.
3. Ask God to help us love others in the way He loves us, being open to reaching out first to those who may seem aloof and uninterested, risking rejection, and choosing to love others, even if they don’t love us back.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/gorodenkoff
Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.
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