“We love because he first loved us.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭19‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Even if you don’t have siblings, you have certainly heard siblings fight. It’s such a common theme. And when a parent scolds a son for hitting his brother, the response is most likely, “He hit me first!” As if that somehow makes it acceptable. But that’s the way we humans in this fallen world think. Retaliation and revenge and justification are a way of life.

In God’s kingdom, things should be very different amongst His children. But also kind of the same. Instead of retaliating the bad, we are told to retaliate with the good. Love begets love. God loves me and fills me up with so much love that I turn around and love my neighbor who turns around and loves his neighbors and so on.

When someone asks me where my love comes from — why do I give generously of my time and money, why do I not fight back in kind when wronged, why do I give a “bad” person a 2nd, 3rd, 4th chance — my answer can be to point to God and say, “He loved me first.”

Dear God,

Thank you so much for loving me so thoroughly when I absolutely did not deserve it. Help me to love this way too so that people notice, and I can point to you as the source of all love. I’m sorry for the many times when I fail and resort to human reactions and retaliations. Forgive me and teach me to represent you better.