We Love Because God First Loved Us

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 (NIV)

The Bible says in 1 John 4:19, “We love because [God] first loved us” (NIV). God is always first
in everything. He takes the initiative. The only reason you can love God or anybody else is
because God first loved you. And he showed that love by sending Jesus Christ to Earth to die for
you. He showed that love by creating you. He showed that love by giving you everything you
have in life. We love because God first loved us.

If you want to learn how to love other people, you’ve got to first understand and feel how much
God loves you. When you feel that unconditional love, you’re going to start cutting people a lot
of slack. You’re not going to be as angry as you’ve been in the past. You’re going to be more
patient. You’re going to be more forgiving. You’re going to be more merciful. You’re going to
show other people grace.

The reason why you see people who are judgmental, sarcastic, angry, self righteous, and always
putting other people down is because they’re putting themselves down. They don’t feel good
about themselves. They don’t feel loved. They don’t feel forgiven. They don’t feel grace. They
feel guilty. They feel bad about themselves. And if they feel bad about themselves, they certainly
don’t want you feeling good about you.

Maybe you’re one of those people. Maybe you’ve been hurt by parents or peers or partners.
Maybe you’ve been abused or misused or rejected or abandoned or betrayed. You’ve got some
scars on your heart.

You cannot give to others what you have not received yourself. Unlovely people are unloved
people. Hurt people hurt people. If you’re filled with anger and impatience and you don’t feel
loved, guess what? You’re not going to be able to love anybody else. You have to learn how
much God loves you and let it heal your heart so his love can flow through you. It is impossible
to love others until you really feel loved yourself.

The Bible says, “We know and rely on the love God has for us” (1 John 4:16a). Do you know the
love of God? Do you rely on the love of God for you? You will have a hard time loving other
people until you have God’s love coming through you.
1ST JOHN 4:7-19

WE ARE TOLD IN GOD"S WORD TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER AMEN!!!

TEXT VERSE 1ST JOHN 4:19

WE LOVE HIM,BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US

OUTLINE,WHY I LOVE THE LORD

1.(BECAUSE OF HIS PAST ACTIONS)

A.HE LOVED ME WHILE I WAS A SINNER.

ROMANS 5:8, BUT GOD COMMENDETH HIS LOVE TOWARD US IN THAT

WHILE WE WERE YET SINNERS,CHIRST DIED FOR US.

B.HE PAID THE PRICE FOR MY SINS.

HEBREWS 2:9,BUT WE SEE JESUS WHO WAS MADE A LITTLE LOWER THAN
THE ANGELS FOR THE SUFFERING OF DEATH,CROWNED WITH GLORY AND
HONOUR THAT HE BY THE GRACE OF GOD SHOULD TASTE DEATH FOR
EVERY MAN.

ROMANS 6:23,FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH:BUT THE GIFT

OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHIRST OUR LORD.

C.HE REACHED DOWN FOR ME AND SAVED MY SOUL.

PSALMS 40:1-3

LETS TURN READ ,,, I PRAISE HIS NAME FOR

HIS PAST ACTIONS, HE REACHED WAY DOWN FOR ME AND THAT"s WHY I
LOVE THE LORD,

1.I LOVE THE LORD BECAUSE OF PAST ACTIONS.

2.I LOVE THE LORD BECAUSE OF PRESENT ACTIVITY.

A.HE HELPS ME.

BY GIVING ME HIS GRACE,2ND COR.12:9 SAYS HIS GRACE IS

SUFFIENT AMEN!!!
SOME ONE SAID IT BEST, GOD"S GRACE KEEPS PACE WITH WHAT EVER WE
MAY FACE.

BY GIVING ME HIS STRENGHT PHIL.4:13

B.HE COMFORTS ME.

HE"S THE GOD OF ALL COMFORT.

C. HE HEARS AND ANSWERS MY PRAYERS JER.33:3

HE SAYS, CALL UNTO ME AND I WILL ANSWER THEE AND SHEW THEE
GREAT AND MIGHTY THINGS WHICH THOU KNOWEST NOT.

D.HE FORGIVES ME WHEN I CONFESS 1ST JOHN 1:9

1.I LOVE THE LORD BECAUSE OF PAST ACTIONS.

2.I LOVE THE LORD BECAUSE OF PRESENT ACTIVITY.

3.I LOVE THE LORD BECAUSE OF PROMISED ASCENSION.

A.HE"s GOING TO COME BACK AND GET ME AND I WILL ASCEND. JOHN 14:1-
3

B.HE"S GOING TO TRANSFORM ME AND MAKE ME LIKE HIMSELF.

1ST JOHN 3:2
PHILIPPIANS 3:21
C.HE"S GOING TO RE-UNITED ME WITH MY SAVED LOVED ONES.
1ST THESSALONIANS 4:13-18

SOME GOLDEN DAY BREAK JESUS WILL COME AMEN!!!!!!!!

WE WILL GO TOO PLACE WHERE THERE IS NO MORE SORROW

SATAN, SICKNESS, SIN, STRIFE, REV 21:4 LETS READ

CLOSING,

WE LOVE HIM BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US.

Jesus Loves...Me?

Jesus Loves me this I know

For the bible tells me so
Little to ones to Him belong
They are weak, but He is strong

In the religious world, there are some who think that the song we all learned as
children,

nowadays is sending the wrong message out.

It should be an all inclusive message of, Jesus loves everyone....

And that is the truth, in and that of itself....

because it does say in

John 3:16 For God so Loved the world...
and that's about as open ended as it gets...that does include everyone!

But until you truly realize how much He loves you, you are never going to
experience all that He has for you...or as the army says "be all that you can be" for
The Lord!

Gods Love, is the key to everything....without His love for us...

we would be finished..we would be nothing!
Everything He has ever promised us, done for us, or given us...
all hinges on and because of His immense Love that He has for us...
Not that we have for Him

1st John 4:17-19 MSG

17-18 God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in

God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home
and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the
world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love
banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—
is one not yet fully formed in love.
19 We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we
love. He loved us first.

There are many today who talk about the love of God, who are total strangers to the
God of love.

TBS. our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s..that means we have what

He has..

Until a person can sing Jesus Loves me...and grasp how much His Grace can truly
mean personally....how can you portray it to your fellow man?

illus. if you had a bottle of honey..and you were trying to tell everyone
About it..and how good it was, how sweet it was,
About all the health benefits You could receive from it..by trying it and using it
In your daily diet...and you had never tried it, or realized
those benefits for yourself...

Don't you think it would be kind of hard to accurately describe

what it could actually accomplish for them in their life?

illus. Years ago, a large Atlanta church was televising the service where they had
asked a retired 92 year minister preach from its pulpit.

There was a warm welcome as he was introduced and, as the applause quieted
down, the old man rose from his high back chair and walked slowly, with great effort
to the podium.

Without a note or written paper of any kind, he placed both hands on the pulpit to
steady himself and then quietly and slowly he began to speak.

"When I was asked to come here today and talk to you, your preacher asked me to

tell you what was the greatest lesson I ever learned in my 50 odd years of
preaching.

I thought about it for a few days and boiled it down to just one thing that made the
most difference in my life and sustained me through all my trials.

The one thing that I could always rely on when tears and heart break and pain and
fear and sorrow paralyzed me. The only thing that would comfort was this verse:
"Jesus loves me this I know. For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong, We are weak but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me... The Bible tells me so."

When he finished, the church was so quiet you actually could hear his foot steps as

he shuffled back to his chair. (www.blufftontoday.com/node/8060)

Numbers 13:1,2,23,26-28,30-33 NKJ

1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Send men to spy out the land of
Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers
you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.”

(Now these were all men...who had witnessed God do the impossible...
When He had brought the entire nation of Israel out of Egypt...

and not only bring them out..but also completely sustained them day after day, in a
dry desert wasteland!

So these men had seen the impossible, become possible countless numbers of
times)

Vs. 23 Then they came to the Valley of Eshcol, and there cut down a branch with
one cluster of grapes; they carried it between two of them on a pole. They also
brought some of the pomegranates and figs.
(Can you imagine what they thought...when they saw grapes, that one cluster
Took a pole and two men to carry....those grapes must have been
the size of apples...to have been that big?)

Vs. 26 Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the
congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they

brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of
the land. 27 Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us.
(It's important to note here...this is the land that God had already told them
That He was Giving to them)

It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 Nevertheless the people
who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we
saw the descendants of Anak there.

(Remember what we read in 1 john chapter 4 earlier....Since fear is crippling, a

fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

Clearly all of them, had seen the Grace and Love of God at work in their life...
but like the honey I told you about earlier....there's a big difference

between seeing and actually tasting it for yourself...and realizing how sweet Gods
Grace and Love really is! Amen?)

30 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once
and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against
the people, for they are stronger than we.” 32 And they gave the children of Israel a
bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we
have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom
we saw in it are men of great stature. 33 There we saw the giants[d] (the

descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our
own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Joshua and Caleb were the only two, even though God had already told them all
That He would give the land to them,

that thought they could do it and realized God Loved them enough to let them
Possess the Land.

TBS. Joshua and Caleb were the only ones of the 12 spies that ever did
occupy the land that flowed with milk and honey.

We have the same opportunity of promised land in our lives available to us.

I can see right now, someone is thinking...

Now wait a minute, that was a physical place...God promised to them.

Did they have life there?

Was their abundance there?
Was Gods love involved in the equation?
John 3:16,17 NKJ
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send
His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might
be saved.

Gods love for us...is a gift to us...that we have to choose to receive right?
Gods Love is the key to everything!

Now wait a minute...I thought Jesus was the key...Jesus is the link to the key!

Without Gods immense love for us first....He never would have given His only
begotten son!

That's why it's impossible to experience everything God has for you, until you realize
how much He truly Loves you

He Loved you enough to give you His most prized possession...

With out the guarantee..you would ever accept or Love Him back!

Yes...Before there was ever a manger..

God had already acknowledged there would be a cross..
His gift would come to us...at great expense!

That's how much Love God has for you!

That's how much Gods Loves me?

Yes....and when you realize how much that is,

how much that Love actually costs Him...

you realize how precious his promises are to you...and that He didn't

Make them idly to you....

Because there all guaranteed by the gift of Love, His son Jesus and reason He
came.

John 10:10 NKJ

10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come
that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

The MSG says it this way; I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and
better life than they ever dreamed of.

The abundant life is a promise, it is the promised land...God has already prepared
for you.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 AMP

11 For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for
evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and
pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me; when you seek me
with all your heart,
Gods plans for you..are just that, there His Plans

And there Great Plans...there awesome Plans

But until seek Him out and call on Him and realize how much
He loves you...

They will never be your plans...and God wants them above all...to be your plans

There All made possible by the fact that God loves you and Jesus Loves you

There is nothing impossible and nothing that can't be overcome...

When you realize how much you are loved by your Heavenly Father!

ILLUS: Tony Campolo recalled working at a Christian junior high camp.

And One of the campers, a boy with spastic paralysis, was the object of heartless
ridicule. When he would ask a question, the boys would deliberately answer in a

halting, mimicking way.

One night his cabin group chose this boy to lead the devotions before the entire
camp. It was one more effort to have some "fun" at his expense.

Unashamedly the spastic boy stood up, and in his strained, slurred manner - each
word coming with enormous effort - he said simply "Jesus loves me -- and I love
Jesus!"
That was all.

Campolo said that conviction fell upon those junior-highers. Many began to cry.
Revival gripped the camp. Years afterward, Campolo says he still meets men in the
ministry who came to Christ because of that testimony.

Which leads me to the question..

What will God be able to accomplish not only in your life..
But in the lives of those around you...
even total strangers..
When you grasp the Love that God has for you?

Ephesians 3
16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened
with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to
comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—
19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all

the fullness of God.

20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or
think, according to the power that works in us,

You see.. It's up to us...as to how much of Gods love we want..

Paul's prayer was that we would know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge
Mark 6:39-44 MSG
39-44 Jesus got them all to sit down in groups of fifty or a hundred—they looked like
a patchwork quilt of wildflowers spread out on the green grass! He took the five
loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the
bread to the disciples, and the disciples in turn gave it to the people. He did the

same with the fish. They all ate their fill. The disciples gathered twelve baskets of
leftovers. More than five thousand were at the supper.

Notice it said...they all ate their fill

When it comes to the Goodness, the Love of God...
You can have as much or as little as you choose..

I choose much!!

It's only when you experience Gods love to the full..

Will you ever have an abundance of it to give away..

And not just because you know about...

But because you've tasted of it..
And you know how sweet and good it really is!