He loved us first

Here is the most freeing thing in this whole class:

You can’t force yourself to love God.

You’ve probably tried. You’ve tried to feel more, pray harder, mean it more on Sunday. And it hasn’t worked, because love doesn’t come from straining.

But here’s what you can do. You can come to know Him. You can come near Him. And you can let knowing who He is slowly change the reason you come.

Scripture — 1 John 4:19 (OTB)

We love Him only because He first loved us.

Where it all started

Go back to the beginning of this class. You may have come to God out of fear, or out of need. That was fine. He met you there. But the deepest truth about you and God isn’t how you came to Him. It’s that He came to you first. Before your fear, before your need, before you’d thought about Him at all, He loved you, and sent His Son for you.

Your love is never the starting point. It’s the answer.

The invitation

So the invitation of this class was never “love God more.” That would just be one more thing to fail at.

The invitation is this:

Come and know the God who already loved you first.

Keep reading to see who He is. Keep coming to Him with nothing in your hands sometimes. Keep obeying the next thing, even when the feeling isn’t there. Keep telling Him honestly where you are. And watch what He does. Fear gives way to need, need to knowing, knowing to trust, and trust, in His time, to love.

Look back

If you’ve kept the two-column sheet from chapter one, take it out. On the right, under “I want to learn to come to God because He is…”, add what you’ve learned about Him over these ten chapters. Is the right-hand column fuller than it was?

A prayer to start with

Write your own, honestly. If you want somewhere to begin:

“God, I want to learn to love You for who You are. I admit that I’ve often come to You out of fear or for what I need. Today I want to know You…”

Recite this

I don’t have to force it. He loved me first.

Try it this week

Write your prayer and pray it. Then choose one of the six practices from chapter seven to keep going with, and tell someone what this class has shown you about God.

I’ll keep practising ________________, starting ________________, and I’ll tell ________________ what I’ve learned about God.