Description
Pondering 1 John 4:12 gives us an insight into the nature of God.
1 John 4:12
No one has ever seen God; if we love one … (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
Today we’re meditating on 1 John chapter 4, verse 12. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
I feel like I really want to put a ‘but’ in between those two clauses. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
So we haven’t seen God but if we show love for each other, true brotherly sisterly affection as members of God’s family in perfect community, God is in us. And his love is being made perfect. Like perfect! That’s better than good – in us.
Can we see that happening? Well, maybe not always. So how do we get to that point where we are fully pursuing this perfect love?
I think partly it has to be a decision of the will. Am I going to love my brothers and sisters? Yes, even him. Yes, even her. Yes, I choose to because we’re all chosen. We are all adopted by God as our father. We have so much wonderful history in common now.
And then with God’s love being perfected in us, as we look at one another, we get a glimpse of what God is like. Isn’t that beautiful? God being shown through us.
I’m not saying we are God, we don’t become God. But the evidence of God living in us, abiding with us, becomes beautiful to one another. And that is what we can strive for in our Christian communities.
Lord God, we ask you to abide in us, to help us to love one another. And God, thank you that you are working towards your love being perfected in us so that we may in some small way reflect your glory and show your beauty to one another and to the world. Amen.
