Is it possible? "He loved us first" (I Jn).
Papa-God loved us first. Incredible, yet true. Spiritual beggars. Morally bankrupt. Soiled souls. Yet ... Papa loved us first. No strings attached. No prior 'oughts' or 'have-to's.' Love gushed from His heart to us.
Why?
What can we add to God? What advantage can we offer the One who is already complete and self-existent? We have nothing to offer to enhance him.
Why? We do not know, and we may never know. He loves us because he loves us. We know Papa loves us and that is enough for us here.
And Papa never stops loving us even if we never love him. His love endures forever and has no limits of time or space or quantity or quality. His love is like a bottomless, shoreless ocean into which we are invited to swim.
Love leaves us speechless. At best, we bow in joyful silence and embrace the One who has already embraced us.
"Greater love has no man than this," Jesus said, "that he lay down his life for his friends." Beaten beyond recognition, spiked to a cross, he cried out, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing." Love sacrificed himself even when we betrayed him, beat him, and spat in his face.
"God loved the world so much that he gave his Son." He still does.
Love can't rest. It's compelled to give. It gives no matter what the cost. Papa's loved us first. Why? That he might call us his beloved.
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