BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US

Friday 1 November

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40 (NKJV)

Did you know that despite their best efforts in keeping the law, the Jews were not able to do it successfully? Neither could anyone else before Christ’s finished work for that matter. Why? Because with all its best intentions and motives, human love is inherently selfish. No one could love God like that. It was impossible There was no capacity in human love to transcend selfishness no matter how good or nice or kind a person appeared to be. There was always an ulterior motive with human love. If you love me, I’ll love you back.

Even in the case of the rich young ruler where he said ‘all these (commandments) I have kept from my youth’ Jesus turned to him and said there is still one thing you lack. Go and sell all you have and give to the poor. He went away sad because he was not prepared to comply. Read the full account in Mark 10:17-27. This is the purpose of the law. The law was designed to point out our faults and ‘school’ us in the realisation that nothing we can ever do is good enough to qualify us for salvation. The worst part was if you break one law you’ve broken them all (James 2:10). Remember Moses was the instigator of the law, not God. The law was an interruption into His grace plan.

Speaking of which, we were only able to love unconditionally and sacrificially after receiving salvation. Reason being, there was something that made the manifestation of this commandment a reality. Romans 5:5b says ‘The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.’ What this means is the only reason we are able to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength is because He deposited His love into our hearts to make it possible.

Can you see it? No wonder the word says in 1 John 4:19 We love Him because He first loved us. In other words, we don’t love God but He loves Himself through us with the love that He put there in the first place. Now who said self-love wasn’t healthy? Another example of this is when David said ‘delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart’ (Psalm 34:7). Think about it for a moment. Who put those desires there in the first place? God. So the desires of your heart that have been granted in Christ were the same desires that God had for you. Question: So whose desires are you fulfilling ultimately. His; and He is a good and perfect Father.

When God had to send someone to rescue humanity, He sent the best man for the job; Himself. Only the things in the Old Testament that God said through the prophets He would do in Christ, were one hundred percent fulfilled by Him.

He alludes to one of these fulfilments through the prophet Ezekiel.

And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.

And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Ezekiel 36:26-27 (NLT)

He gave us a heart of unconditional, sacrificial, love in Christ, and we are now the recipients of His reckless love. We love Him because He first loved us!

APPLICATION

In the same way that we love Him because He first loved us, we are to ‘love one another as I (Jesus) have loved you’, unconditionally and sacrificially as He exampled to us.