…because He first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

John does not say, “We love Him because we admire Him,” but “We love Him because He first loved us.” Love to God, wherever it really exists, has been created in the bosom by a belief of God’s love to us. No man loves God till he knows that God loves him; and every believer loves God for this reason first and chiefly, that God loves him. He has seen himself to be unworthy of divine favour, yet he has believed God’s love in the gift of His dear Son, and he has accepted the atonement that Christ has made as a proof of God’s love, and now being satisfied of the divine affection towards him, he of necessity loves his God. Observe, then, that love to God does not begin in the heart from any disinterested admiration of the nature of God…I, a poor sinner, by nature sunk in the mire, full of everything that is evil, condemned, guilty of death, so that my only desert is to be cast into hell, am under such obligations to my Saviour and my God, that it would be idle for me to talk about a disinterested affection for Him, since I owe to Him my life, my all. Besides, until I catch the gleams of His mercy and His loving-kindness to the guilty, His holy, just, and righteous character are not loveable to me; I dread the purity which condemns my defilement, and shudder at the justice which will consume me for my sin. Do not, O seeker, trouble your heart with nice distinctions about disinterested love, but be you content with the beloved disciple John to love Christ because He first loved you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm