We love him, because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 KJV
The law of reciprocity is the natural law of the natural man. No natural human being does anything for nothing; the natural man was born selfish, self-centred and looking out only for himself. He does something for someone else, expecting that at least the person will do something also in return. We do favours, expecting that at some point in the future, these people will reciprocate. This is why the natural man is stuck, because he knows no other way. That is all he can produce, because that is what is natural to his nature. If that life will produce something different, God has to deal with the foundation of that life.
That change in foundation is only possible when I know and understand what I have been given. If I do not have an idea what I was saved from and what I was brought into, how do I respond in the right way to what God has done? How can my life produce fruit from a seed that has not been planted in me? I have to first create a conducive environment for the seed of God's grace to be planted, and then for it to receive the nourishment and supply it needs to grow. When the seed has all it needs, then growth is inevitable.
That seed is the love of God, manifest in so many ways, but the chief of them all is his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. That singular episode made it possible for my life to also produce something that looks like what I got from God. I could never have produced love if God did not first birth it in me. I cannot give what I don't have and I cannot also hide that which has been born in me. God's love is the reason why I stand where I am now, and he is the reason why I am who I am now. His love has made it possible for me to love the unlovable, even people who despitefully use and persecute me. I don't deal with them in like manner because I have now experienced a love that also did not deal with me in like manner, when I was sinning and rejecting God.
I love now because I have had a personal encounter with the God of love. I now know what the original version looks like, so that I can evaluate what I hold and be sure it is the original version. If I am still easily angered and irritated by other people, maybe I need to check again what I hold. If sin is still very attractive to me, maybe I need to check if I have truly embraced the love that has conquered sin and makes it possible for man to live above sin. God's love now makes it possible for me to love other people created in the image of the God who first loved me when I was so far away from him. That is love: true and real even when the target did not know he needed help. We love, because we received love from The One called love. I have no excuse now. The day of reckoning is coming, when all of us will render an account of what we did with the love that was offered for free. There are eternal consequences attached to whatever my response will be. His time of favour is here.
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