Because He First Loved Us
The Test, the Fruit, and the Love That Had to Come First
“We love, because He first loved us.”
— 1 John 4:19 AMP
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We Love
I love John. I love the book of John. It is my favorite. Those who have been faithfully walking through Scripture with me are probably saying, Yes, yes. We know. But I do. And this other book of John is so good.
Because when I expanded today’s verse to read the whole chapter, the Bible app did what it obviously does and took me to the beginning. And I am glad it did, because before John ever gets to: “We love, because He first loved us,”he begins with something that initially seems like an entirely different subject.
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit [speaking through a self-proclaimed prophet]; instead test the spirits to see whether they are from God…”
— 1 John 4:1 AMP
Wait. We are eventually going to get to one of the most beautiful statements in Scripture: God is love. But John begins: Test the spirits.
And I think that matters enormously. Because John is about to teach us about love, but before he does, he teaches us not to believe everything that presents itself as spiritual. Apparently, love and discernment were never supposed to be enemies.
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Test It
John gives his readers a delineator:
“By this you know and recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges and confesses [the fact] that Jesus Christ has actually come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus… is not of God.”
— 1 John 4:2–3 AMP
And I remember sitting with Holy Spirit around this because I had a question. Lord, demons know who Yeshua is. Scripture records it.
In Mark 1, an unclean spirit cries out: “I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” And Yeshua silences him. James says even more plainly: “You believe that God is one; you do well. The demons also believe, and shudder.”
— James 2:19 AMP
So clearly John cannot mean that simply possessing correct information about Yeshua proves something is from God. Demons possess correct information. They know exactly who He is. And that distinction opened something for me.
There is a difference between recognition and allegiance.
The Greek word John uses for confess is homologeō—ὁμολογέω. It carries the sense of acknowledging, confessing, declaring agreement. John is confronting teachings that denied the truth about Yeshua—particularly the reality of Jesus Christ having come in the flesh. His test is deeply Christological. But throughout the New Testament, confession is never reduced to merely being able to identify Jesus correctly.
A demon can recognize authority while remaining opposed to it. That is not discipleship. That is recognition without surrender. And suddenly I thought: Knowing who Yeshua is and belonging to Yeshua are not the same thing.
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The Test and the Fruit
This matters because John does not stop with confession. He keeps moving. And eventually he says:
“Beloved, let us [unselfishly] love and seek the best for one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves [others] is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love.”
— 1 John 4:7–8 AMP
There it is. God is love.
And this is where I have had questions too. Because what does John mean when he says everyone who loves is born of God? People love things. People love themselves. We say we love our families, our dogs, our houses, our favorite songs. I love pizza. Clearly John is not saying that anyone capable of affection—or anyone who uses the English word love—therefore knows God.
So what kind of love is he talking about? John answers that question before we have time to make up our own definition.
“By this the love of God was displayed in us, in that God has sent His one and only Son… into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation… for our sins.”
— 1 John 4:9–10 AMP
Oh. John does not leave love undefined. He points to Yeshua.
That changes everything.
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Love Has a Shape
The Greek word throughout this passage is agapē—ἀγάπη. And sometimes Christian teaching has made agapē sound almost magical, as though the Greek word automatically means “God’s perfect unconditional love” every time it appears. The word itself can refer broadly to love.
What gives love its astonishing shape here is what John says God did. God sent. God gave. God moved toward us. God sought our life at cost to Himself. John’s definition of love is not merely emotional intensity.
Love has a shape, and John shows us the cross.
This love seeks the good of another. It gives. It moves outward. It does not merely consume. It does not call possession love simply because possession feels intense.
And this matters because counterfeit love exists. Something can feel warm and still be selfish. Something can sound compassionate and still manipulate. Something can use spiritual language and still produce fruit utterly unlike God. Paul says Satan himself “masquerades as an angel of light” in 2 Corinthians 11:14.
And now I understand even more why John began where he did. Test the spirits. Because not everything that looks like light comes from Light. And not everything called love looks like God.
So John gives us something better than appearance. He gives us Yeshua. Test what is speaking against Him. Then look at what it produces.
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Maybe This Is Why Some People Struggle to Believe
And this touches something personal for me. Sometimes when someone says they do not believe in God, I wonder about the story underneath the sentence. Because I remember being a teenager and having experiences with “Christians” that made me question things too.
Sometimes what people have rejected is genuinely God. But sometimes I wonder whether what they first encountered was a human representation of Him so distorted that they began questioning the Original because of the counterfeit.
That matters to me. Because Scripture says creation itself testifies. Paul writes in Romans:
“For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship… so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense.”
— Romans 1:20 AMP
Creation is speaking. The heavens are not silent. The created order points beyond itself toward Creator. But human beings are speaking too. And sometimes we speak about God while bearing very little resemblance to Him.
That should sober us. Because John does not merely seem interested in whether I can make the correct confession with my mouth. He is interested in whether the God I confess is becoming recognizable through my life.
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God Is Love
And now those three words become enormous: God is love.
John does not say love is God. That distinction matters. If I reverse John’s sentence, then whatever I personally experience as “love” can become divine simply because I named it love. But John gives us the order the other way around.
God is love.
God defines love. I do not get to construct a definition of love and then demand that God conform Himself to it. I look at God to learn what love is. And John points directly to Yeshua.
This is love: He sent His Son.
Which means love is not merely something God feels. Love moves. Love gives. Love seeks life.
And then John says something remarkable:
“Beloved, if God so loved us [in this incredible way], we also ought to love one another.”
— 1 John 4:11 AMP
There is the movement. God → us → one another. We are not the source. We are the vessel.
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Because He First
And now I finally reached the words that had caught me from the jump: “We love, because He first loved us.”
We love. And then: He first.
That changes the entire sentence. John does not say: We loved well enough, so God responded. We became worthy enough, so God moved toward us. We figured out love and then learned He agreed.
No. He first.
Before our response, there was His initiative. Before our pursuit, His pursuit. Before our surrender, His invitation. Before we knew how to love Him, we were already being loved by Him.
That means Christian love is fundamentally responsive. We do not manufacture the source. We receive from it. And maybe that explains why trying harder to love people can become so exhausting when we disconnect verse 19 from everything that came before it.
John does not tell us to become the origin of something only God can originate. He tells us where love begins. He first loved us. And because He did, something becomes possible in us that was not generated by us.
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Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
And there is another reason the order matters. Immediately before verse 19, John writes:
“There is no fear in love [dread does not exist]. But perfect (complete, full-grown) love drives out fear…”
— 1 John 4:18 AMP
For years I think I sometimes heard that verse as another assignment. Love better so you will stop being afraid.
But read the movement. God loved us. His love is being brought to maturity in us. We come to know and believe the love God has for us. Perfect love drives out fear. We love because He first loved us.
What if fear is not conquered primarily by our ability to produce more love? What if fear begins losing territory as we become increasingly convinced of His?
The source matters. Because we cannot give from a source we refuse to receive from. And maybe this is why John keeps circling back to abiding. God abides in us. We abide in Him. His love is perfected in us.
The love moves through the place where He lives.
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The Test Was Never Separate From the Love
And suddenly the beginning of the chapter no longer feels separate from the end. Test the spirits. God is love. We love because He first loved us.
These are not disconnected teachings. John is teaching us how to recognize what is truly of God. Do not be seduced merely because something sounds spiritual. Test it against Yeshua. Do not be persuaded merely because something calls itself love. Look at its fruit.
Does it resemble the God revealed in Christ? Does it move toward truth? Does it seek the good of another? Does it give rather than merely consume? Does it produce the character of the One it claims to represent?
Because demons can recognize Yeshua. Darkness can masquerade as light. Humans can use the word love while meaning entirely different things. But John keeps bringing us back to the same place.
Look at Him.
Yeshua becomes both the confession and the definition. He tells us what is true. And He shows us what love looks like.
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We Love
And suddenly we are right back where we started. We love.
Those were the first two words that caught our attention. At first, they sound like something we do. But after walking through this chapter, we can see something deeper.
“We love” is not merely an action. It is evidence.
John began by teaching us to test what claims to be from God. Do not simply believe what something calls itself. Look at what it confesses. Look at what it produces. And by verse 19, John gives us fruit to examine.
We love.
But fruit does not begin on the branch. Long before fruit becomes visible, life has been moving from somewhere hidden. And John traces it backward for us: “We love, because He first loved us.”
There is the whole movement. We love—there is the fruit. Because—follow it backward. He first loved us—there is the root.
And suddenly the beginning and ending of the chapter meet. Test the spirits.Trace things back to their source. God is love. Now we know what true love looks like. We love. Now something of His nature is becoming visible. Because He first loved us. Now we know where it came from.
He first.
Before love became fruit in our lives, it was His nature. Before it became something moving through us, it was something moving toward us. Before we knew how to recognize it, He gave love a face in Yeshua.
And that may be the quiet wonder hidden inside these two little words: We love. They are carrying evidence of something that happened before them.
If God is love, and we abide in Him and He abides in us, then over time the invisible Source should become recognizable in the visible fruit. Not merely in what we say we believe. Not merely in what we call love. But in what actually grows.
And now we are exactly where we began. We love. Only now we can see what is standing behind those words.
He first.
The love visible at the end of the branch began somewhere our eyes could not see. In Him. From Him. Toward us. And now, through us.
“We love, because He first loved us.”
We started with the fruit. John took us back to the root.
And when the love is truly His, the fruit will eventually reveal where it came from.
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I Hear the Spirit Say…
“Beloved, come close for a moment. You keep thinking about how to love Me, how to love them, how to get this right. But before you ask yourself what love requires from you, I want you to remember what love has already done for you.
I loved you first.
Before you ever reached for Me, I had already reached for you. Before you knew My voice, I knew yours. Before you understood what love was, Mine was already moving toward you.
Do not rush past that.
You are accustomed to beginning with what you must do next. How should I respond? How should I love? How should I forgive? How should I become more like You? But come backward with Me for a moment.
Before your response, there was My love. Before your obedience, there was My love. Before you ever produced a single piece of fruit, there was a Root beneath you that you did not create.
This is why I teach you to test. Discernment does not make you less loving. It teaches you to recognize what actually carries My nature. Not everything wrapped in warmth is love. Not everything that looks like light comes from Me.
Look at the fruit.
And look at what I am growing in you. You can tell the truth and remain tender. You can love without abandoning discernment. You can walk away from what is not Mine without allowing hatred to follow you. You can remain soft without surrendering what is true.
That is fruit.
You did not manufacture that life. You received Me. What is rooted in Me is beginning to resemble Me.
So stop beginning with what you must produce and return to what you have already received.
You did not begin this movement. I did.
My love moved first. Toward you. Into you. And now, through you.
There are places in you that still expect love to arrive after performance. Let My love teach them something different. I did not discover you after you became lovable.
I loved you first.
And the more deeply you become convinced of My love, the less room fear has to remain. What came toward you begins moving through you. What was invisible at the Root becomes visible in the fruit.
We love.
There it is.
But now you know where it came from.
So when you wonder how you are supposed to love, do not begin with pressure.
Begin with remembrance.
I first loved you.
Stay there long enough, beloved, and what is true at the Root will keep becoming visible on the branch.
You love because I first loved you.”
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