"We love, because God first loved us"

If you received a Christmas card from Fi and I, then these words will have been written inside it. But what do you actually think when you read those words? What does it mean? We love... what, exactly?

From things I've read, and conversations I've held, it's a popular opinion that this kind of love refers to us loving God - a sort of reciprocation of his original love. Clearly, this can't be wrong! The message of grace means that God had to act before we ever could; it was only through God's sacrificial love that we can ever come to have a relationship in which "love" towards him is possible.

But I think John might be saying something more that just that here. Perhaps it's fair to say that we can attribute the whole human emotion of love being because of God and his actions? Any act of love we perform here and now, to others, and also to God, is only possible because of God's love. Our capacity to love is a gift!

What a precious gift! Without God's sacrifice, how would we describe our feelings towards our boyfriend/girlfriend, our brother/sister, our favourite sports team/pizza topping!? At a time of year where people long to be "with" someone, to be loved by another, be encouraged by knowing that that sometimes gut-wrenching, sometimes toe-tingling sensation we have is a present from God, and it cost him his son to give it to you.

So thank him for it, and bask in the love that God has already demonstrated - a love which allows any of us the chance to be "with" someone forever.

"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 use and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

Happy Valentine's Day.