The Origin of Every Love Deposit
The Origin of
Every Love Deposit
Understanding where love truly begins — and why it changes everything
"You are not loved because you were good.
You are loved because God is good."
Love is not God's reaction to your failure.
Love is His eternal disposition.
"Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love."1 John 4:7–8 (NLT) — The Key Text
The Origin of Every Love Deposit: Why You Can't Give What You Haven't Received
Barry's Bureau | Inspired by Dr. Richard Price's sermon at Schrader Lane Church of Christ
Before you can love anyone well — your spouse, your church, your neighbor — you have to trace love all the way back to its source. In this powerful message from 1 John 4:7-12, Dr. Richard Price reveals that God's love is not a reaction to your goodness, but His eternal disposition — and that truth changes everything about how you give and receive love.
Has someone ever told you "I love you" — and you believed them — but what you received felt nothing like love? Maybe it was instability disguised as devotion, or control masquerading as care. Maybe someone loved you when you were performing at your best, but vanished the moment your limitations showed. And somewhere in the wreckage of those experiences, you started building walls. You started flinching every time someone said those three words.
You are not alone. And this Sunday, at Schrader Lane Church of Christ, Dr. Richard Price stepped into exactly that tender, complicated space — not to lecture, but to liberate. His message, drawn from 1 John 4:7-12, did not start with what we must do. It started with who God is. Because until you understand the source, you cannot rightly understand the supply.
Starting Where Scripture Starts: God Is the Source
The Apostle John writes in 1 John 4:7-8 (NLT): "Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
Notice what John does not say. He does not say God has love, as though it were a quality He picked up along the way. He says God is love. This is His eternal identity. This is not something God turns on when you behave and turns off when you disappoint. As Dr. Price declared with unmistakable conviction: "Love is not God's reaction to your failure. Love is His eternal disposition."
That single sentence is worth meditating on for a week. God loved you before creation — not in response to anything you did or could ever do. Ephesians 1:4-5 tells us that even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ. The treasury of divine love was full and overflowing long before you were born.
Love Before the World Began: The Eternal Foundation
One of the most stunning moments in Dr. Price's sermon came when he took us back — not just to the cross, not just to Genesis — but to before creation itself. In John 17:24, Jesus prays to the Father: "You loved me even before the world began." This is the Trinity in eternal fellowship: the Father loving the Son, the Son delighting in the Father, the Spirit proceeding in eternal communion.
Dr. Price drew a distinction that reshapes everything: "Love did not originate at Calvary. Love did not start at Calvary — but Calvary revealed something unto us. Calvary revealed what eternal fellowship looks like."
This means that the cross was not God scrambling to fix a problem. Calvary was the demonstration of what had always been true. God's love is not a response to your sin — it existed before there was any sin to respond to. Before brokenness needed healing, God loved. Before humanity needed redeeming, God loved. The cross simply pulled back the curtain and let us see it.
Why does this matter for how you love? Because if you think God only loves you when you perform, you will love others the same way — conditionally, transactionally, exhaustingly. But when you understand that love flows from an eternal source that has nothing to do with performance, you are freed to love without keeping score.
The Wound of Counterfeit Love — and How to Heal from It
Dr. Price did not gloss over the pain in the room. He named it directly. Many of us have been shaped not by true love but by its imitations. He described these counterfeits with piercing clarity: love that flatters but does not commit. Love that attaches but does not protect. Love that demands but does not sacrifice. Love that controls but calls it care.
Some of us were told "I love you" — but what we received was abandonment. We were told "I love you" — but what we endured was conditional acceptance. Over time, those wounds distorted our theology. We began measuring God by broken people. We started flinching when anyone, even God, said He loves us.
But here is the word that sets the captive free: What wounded you is not the agape love of God. What failed you was not covenant love. Jeremiah 31:3 declares: "I have loved you with an everlasting love." Everlasting means it does not expire when you disappoint. And Romans 8:38-39 assures us that nothing — not your past, not your fears, not your failures — can ever separate you from the love of God.
Dr. Price issued a powerful challenge: "Before we deposit love next week, release something this week. Release somebody who hurt you because you thought they were love." Until you separate imitation from revelation, you will hesitate every time someone says God is love. The healing begins when you stop measuring divine love by human limitations.
The Cross: Where Justice and Love Embrace — and Why That Changes How You Love
God did not just declare His love from a safe distance. He sent His Son. 1 John 4:9-10 (NLT): "God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world... This is real love — not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins."
Christ is the propitiation — the qualified sacrifice who stood in your place. As Dr. Price thundered from the pulpit, "Somebody who was qualified took the pain. Somebody shed His blood." And Psalm 85:10 captures the beauty of what happened at Calvary: "Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed." Justice was not suspended at the cross — it was fulfilled. Love and holiness are not in tension; they are united in Christ.
This matters for your daily walk because 1 John 4:12 tells us: "If we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us." Love made visible — in your marriage, your friendships, your congregation — is the testimony that God is alive and well in His people. You cannot deposit what you have not first received. But once you receive it? The treasury is inexhaustible.
"You are not loved because you were good. You are loved because God is good."
— Dr. Richard Price
4 Ways to Walk in the Love That Was Deposited in You
- Return to the Source Daily. Before you try to love anyone, spend time in God's Word and prayer. You cannot sustain what you do not replenish. Start each morning by receiving His love before you give it away.
- Release the Counterfeit. Identify one person who gave you a distorted picture of love. Decide — not for their sake, but for yours — to release them in prayer this week. Forgiveness breaks the power of the imitation and restores your capacity to receive the real thing.
- Apply the Agape Test. In your relationships, ask: Does this person draw me closer to God or further away? True love, as Dr. Price teaches, never pulls you from your covenant. Evaluate your closest relationships through that lens.
- Make Love Visible. Choose one intentional act of love this week — a call, a meal, an encouraging word — directed at someone in your church family. Love is not a feeling to wait for; it is an action to step into.
Catch Dr. Richard Price's full sermon, "The Origin of Every Love Deposit," at Schrader Lane Church of Christ. Then deepen your study with the interactive quiz and study game built around this lesson — available at BarrysBureau.org. Share these tools with your small group or family and study together.
Living This Out: A Challenge for This Week
Here is the question Dr. Price left hanging in the air, and it is worth sitting with: Who or what have you placed in the position that only God can fill? Where have you allowed counterfeit love — from a relationship, a job, an approval — to set your worth and define your capacity to love others?
The invitation today is not simply to feel better about love. It is to go back to the original deposit. God loved you before the world began. He proved it at Calvary. He confirmed it in the resurrection. And now He invites you to draw from that treasury and pour it into the people He has placed around you — not because they deserve it, but because He does.
Drop a comment below: Where is God calling you to make a love deposit this week? Share this post with someone who needs to be reminded that they are loved — not because of what they've done, but because of who God is.
Join us for worship at Schrader Lane Church of Christ or visit BarrysBureau.org for more resources.
The Origin of Every Love Deposit
Test your knowledge of this powerful message from 1 John 4:7-12. Seven questions will take you from recall to reflection, helping you internalize the truth about where love really comes from — and what it means for how you live and love every day.
Fill-in-the-Blank Challenge
🎮 How to Play
Complete each sentence from Dr. Price's sermon by selecting the correct missing word or phrase from the word bank below. Each correct answer earns a point. See how well you know this message!Eight key truths from The Origin of Every Love Deposit are waiting for you. Choose carefully — each one reflects a core teaching from 1 John 4:7-12.