First Love

I heard it again recently and I cringe every time. "God is holy and cannot or will not look upon sin and/or sinners. Only after we come to the cross and repent of our sin will God have anything to do with us. Only after a person becomes a Christian will God love them or listen to their prayers."

It is just not true. Jesus was tagged "a friend of sinners", and while not intended as a compliment by any means, he wore it as a badge of honor. The way Jesus loved people is the way God loves people--same heart.

The idea that only after we come to Christ, confess our sins, repent and turn from our old lives will God be able to love us is just wrong.

"Because God loved the world so much, He gave His One and Only Son, and who ever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life." That little passage from John's Gospel is perhaps the best known verse in all the New Testament.

What comes first, the loving or the giving? He loved us first, that's the reason He gave. His love motivates His giving.

The loving comes first on His part, and that's what draws us. That's what gives us the courage to come out of hiding and confront the filth in our hearts and our lives. We respond to that love with confession of shortcomings, a changed mind and a change in behavior.

We don't "repent" in order to earn His love, but because we finally "get" just how much we are loved.

He loved you before the cross. He has always loved you. That is the very reason for the cross.

The Disciple named John sees it like this:

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us... We love because he loved us first. " (1 John 4:7-12, 19)