{"id":8114,"date":"2017-01-03T23:28:40","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T04:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/giveusthisday\/?p=8114"},"modified":"2017-01-03T23:28:40","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T04:28:40","slug":"1-john-4-see-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/giveusthisday\/1-john-4-see-god\/","title":{"rendered":"1 John 4 – How to See God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Serving<\/strong>I think I need about a week to meditate on 1 John 4, but since I have only a day I want to focus on God.\u00a0 In particular, I want to try to understand two things about God:\u00a0 first, that God is love, and second that no one has seen God at any time.\u00a0 If you put these two things together, then you\u2019ll understand both why people have a hard time believing God and also have an important clue to how we can all see and love Him better.<\/p>\n

First, God is love.\u00a0 As I said yesterday, love is an action and because God is eternal His love must constantly be in action.\u00a0 Even before He created the world in love, God was love.\u00a0 How?\u00a0 Because the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all lived in perfect love before the world and time were created.\u00a0 God was love, God is love, and God will be love forever.\u00a0 This is the most fundamental fact of reality.<\/p>\n

As I said yesterday, love is an action and not just a static idea.\u00a0 Ultimately, God\u2019s love or desire to do good to others spilled over and out of Himself and gushed out in the Creation.\u00a0 We were all conceived by the love of God, and therefore love is a fundamental part of Creation because God created it by and for love.\u00a0 And yet God is invisible, and so how can we see God?\u00a0 We see it in the fruits of His love \u2013 in His Creation.\u00a0 But we don\u2019t always or fully see God\u2019s love in His Creation.\u00a0 If only there were some other way.<\/p>\n

There is!\u00a0 The Creation speaks imperfectly of God\u2019s love and nature to us, especially since we\u2019ve forgotten the language of love and can no longer interpret the songs of the birds and the angels.\u00a0 Of course, we\u2019ve forgotten the language of love because we have not loved God, and it takes love to understand love.\u00a0 Sin stands in the way of love, and pride is the opposite of love.\u00a0 How can we learn to see God and love Him?<\/p>\n

God manifested it to us, not only showing us the love He always had but by remedying the problem of sin that destroys love.\u00a0 God manifested His love to us by sending His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him (verse 9.)\u00a0 This is the Son who laid down His life for us that we might lay down our lives for the brethren.\u00a0 This is the Son who showed us the love of God by becoming one of us and destroying the destroyer of love \u2013 sin.<\/p>\n

This, therefore, is love \u2013 not that we loved God but that He first loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (verse 10.)<\/p>\n

But what about that second point, that God is invisible?\u00a0 Yes, God is visible through His Creation \u2013 but I see through a glass darkly and am clouded by sin.\u00a0 It is hard to see the love of God in His Creation: I need something more.\u00a0 Yes, God has sent His Son into the world: but the Son is now at the right hand of the Father, and I don\u2019t have the visions that Sts. Stephen or John had in gazing into heaven and seeing Him there.\u00a0 I was not privileged to see Him in the flesh.<\/p>\n

Am I the only one who still has trouble seeing the God who is love and yet is invisible?\u00a0 I doubt it, though sometimes I feel like it.\u00a0 Is there still some other way that I can see God and His love that I may abide in them more?<\/p>\n

John has told us another way, but already my memory of it grows dim.\u00a0 Remember how John told us he was writing his letter so that he who had seen and heard God in the flesh might share Him with us (1:3)?\u00a0 Remember how Jesus Himself said, \u201cBy this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another\u201d (John 13:35)?\u00a0 Remember how John said that \u201che who loves his brother abides in the light\u201d (2:10) and how here in 4:7 he said, \u201cBeloved, let us love one another, for love is of God\u201d?\u00a0 Perhaps most intriguingly John says, \u201cas He is, so are we in the world\u201d (verse 17.)<\/p>\n

Putting this all together, how can we see God and His love better?\u00a0 By loving one another and by being loved.\u00a0 God did not shine His light of love through His Son for only 3 years or so on earth.\u00a0 What a waste, if this were true!\u00a0 No, God continues to shine His light of love through His Son, who is in us, and therefore the light of love must shine through us.<\/p>\n

How can we see God and His love better?\u00a0 By loving one another and by being loved.\u00a0 How well we reflect the love of God in our lives by loving and being loved has everything to do with how well we and the world see God.<\/p>\n

No love, no light.\u00a0 No love, no God.<\/p>\n

When people say, then, that they have not seen God, either they are looking for Him in the wrong way or they have not experienced His love through the Christians in their lives.\u00a0 How sad, how tragic, how sinful<\/em> if we become an obstacle to others seeing God and experiencing His love because we refuse to love.\u00a0 In this way, we can begin to understand why love is such a central theme to John and why he presents it as the<\/em> key to knowing God, being faithful to Him, and showing Him to others.<\/p>\n

God is love, but God is invisible.\u00a0 How can we and others see Him?\u00a0 By being love, as He is love.<\/p>\n

Resolution:\u00a0 I resolve to meditate on how I can better reflect the love of God to a lost and dying world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prayer:\u00a0 Father, by Your perfect love cast out all fear in my life and grant me boldness in the Day of Judgment.\u00a0 By the love You have manifested to me by Your Son, make me to love as You first loved me.\u00a0 Amen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Point for Meditation:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Meditate on the love of God He has expressed through His Creation.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Meditate on how much love God has shown to you. By this, meditate on and measure how much you should love others (4:11.)\u00a0 Continue practicing practical ways to show love to others today.\u00a0 If you made a list yesterday, either continue practicing the same way of showing love or pick a new one.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 General\u00a0license<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How to see God<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2856,"featured_media":8115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[876,925,967,1597,2000,2290],"class_list":["post-8114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-general-revelation","tag-god-is-love","tag-gods-invisibility","tag-natural-revelation","tag-seeing-god","tag-the-creation"],"yoast_head":"\n1 John 4 - How to See God - Give Us This Day<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How to see God\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/giveusthisday\/1-john-4-see-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"1 John 4 - How to See God - Give Us This Day\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How to see God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/giveusthisday\/1-john-4-see-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Give Us This Day\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-04T04:28:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/731\/2017\/01\/Serving-the-Homeless.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"318\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. 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