He Loved Us First: The Foundation of Intimate Discipleship
“For the Souls in Purgatory – Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord”
1 John 4:9–10
In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Grace Prayed For
Lord, grant me the grace to receive Your love — not merely to know it in my mind, but to feel it penetrate the deepest parts of my heart, so that every act of devotion I offer flows not from obligation or fear, but from a genuine response to the love You first showed me.
Reflection
There is a temptation, especially during Lent, to imagine that our spiritual efforts are what draw God closer to us. We fast more strictly, pray more fervently, give more generously — and somewhere beneath all of that good and holy activity, there can lurk a subtle, unexamined belief: If I do enough, God will love me more. John dismantles that illusion with quiet, devastating clarity. “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us.”
The initiative was never ours.
Before a single prayer crossed our lips, before the first act of repentance, before we even knew to turn our eyes in His direction — God was already moving toward us. He sent His only Son into the world, not as a reward for humanity’s faithfulness, but precisely in the midst of our unfaithfulness. This is the staggering logic of divine love: it does not wait for worthiness. It creates it.
John uses the word expiation — a word worth sitting with today. Expiation means to make amends, to remove the barrier that separates. Christ was not sent to appease an angry God, but to clear the path between a longing God and a wandering humanity. He absorbed the distance our sin had created and transformed it into an opening, a doorway, an invitation. The cross is not punishment in disguise; it is rescue at its most costly.
This matters profoundly for how we understand our Lenten journey. We are not climbing a ladder trying to reach Someone who is waiting indifferently at the top. We are responding to Someone who has already descended, already knelt beside us in the dust, already whispered our name. Our fasting, our prayer, our almsgiving — these are not performances staged to earn divine attention. They are the language of a heart that is learning, slowly and imperfectly, to say thank you and yes and I trust you in return.
To become an intimate disciple — the kind of disciple who knows Christ not merely as Savior but as friend — we must first accept that we are already loved. Not when we improve. Not when we get Lent right. Now. As we are.
That is not a comfortable truth for those of us trained to earn our place. It asks us to lay down our spiritual résumé and simply receive. But this receptivity is not passivity — it is the most courageous act of faith we can offer. It means trusting that the God revealed in 1 John is not a God who keeps score, but a God who keeps searching, who keeps sending, who keeps loving — even when we are slow to love in return.
As this first week ends, let this be your prayer and your rest: He loved me first. Everything begins there.
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Sharing
Jesus last words on Earth were to his disciples, can be found in Matthew Chap 28 when Jesus told his disciples, “Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Jesus calls all of us to share in his redemptive mission here on Earth. I would ask you to share this Scripture reflection with your family, your friends and your acquaintances, and then share it with a couple of individuals that you may may not be comfortable sharing with, keeping in mind always the words of Jesus, And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age
Author was assisted by AI in the drafting of this Post