“We love because He first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19
I recently came across a reflection by Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish theologian and philosopher, about this Bible verse. He pointed out that we often speak of God’s love in terms of the past—“He first loved us”—as if God’s love was something He showed once long ago, rather than something He continues to pour out every single moment. This idea intrigued me. I have never thought of God’s love that way, But I began to wonder how many of us do.
Maybe we imagine He loved us back when we first believed, or before we messed things up. Before the failure. Before the doubt. Before we stopped feeling worthy of it. But the truth is, God’s love isn’t a one-time event. It’s not a past-tense kind of love. His love is present, constant, and unchanging. Jeremiah 31:3 says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” It doesn’t say, “I loved you when you had it all together” or “I loved you until you disappointed Me.” No—God’s love is everlasting.
When I was younger, I went to a Christian school and I got in trouble more often than I’d like to admit. I can’t remember what I did one particular day, but I still remember a teacher asking, “What do you think Jesus would say if He saw you doing that?” The implication, of course, was that He would be disappointed in me. But now, with a little more understanding of grace, I think I know what Jesus would say: “I love you.” Not “I loved you before you did that,” not “I’ll love you again when you clean up your act.” Just… “I love you.”
That’s the heart of the Gospel. Romans 5:8 reminds us, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” His love isn’t reactive; it’s proactive. He doesn’t love us because we’re good—He loves us because He is good. He doesn’t look at our failures and shake His head; He looks at us through the lens of Jesus and sees sons and daughters, clothed in righteousness, full of potential, and deeply loved.
So if you’ve ever found yourself thinking of God’s love as something that “was,” I want to remind you that it is, right now. Forever. It never ceases. And as we let that truth soak into our hearts, we’re invited to respond—to love Him, not out of fear, but because we’re secure in the fact that we are fully known and fully loved.
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