We love because he first loved us.
—1 John 4:19
How about this thing between God and us? He started it.
God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” (Jer 1:5). The same can be said of us, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world” (Eph 1:4).
“We love Him because He first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19 NKJV). He sent his Son from his happy home to our neck of the woods because he “so loved” us (Jn 3:16).
Jesus made the terrible trip to deliver that unfathomable, unsurpassable, unmerited love, saying, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).
Call it grace. Call it love. Either way, you get it right.
We know him because he first knew us.
We love him because he first loved us.