Loved First

"To you whom I love I say, let us go on loving one another, for love comes from God. Every man who truly loves is God’s son and has some knowledge of him. But the man who does not love cannot know him at all, for God is love. To us, the greatest demonstration of God’s love for us has been his sending his only Son into the world to give us life through him. We see real love, not in that fact that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to make personal atonement for our sins. If God loved us as much as that, surely we, in our turn, should love each other!" 1 John 4:7-11

When you look up the word "love" in the dictionary, here are the first four definitions given:

(1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties 
(2) : attraction based on sexual desire 
(3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests 
          b : an assurance of affection 

Okay. Very nice. Thank you, Merriam-Webster.

But what the apostle John wants you and I to realize, and to walk into this day living, is that, in reality, these are the only true definitions of real love:

(1) : Jesus Himself
(2) : His life that, living among us, gives life
(3) : Literal self-sacrificial, blood-soaked, complete personal atonement that is not only unconditional in scope but, maybe more impressively, without pre-condition: “not in the fact that we loved God, but that He loved us…”

Or, to put it another way:

“Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy, Jesus does not boast, Jesus is not proud. Jesus does not dishonor others, Jesus is not self-seeking, Jesus is not easily angered, Jesus keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Jesus never fails.”

​What a wonder to be loved first by this Man!