No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4:12 NET
As humans, we are incapable of seeing God. Our physical senses cannot perceive the spiritual realm. There are some in the Scripture who have seen a physical manifestation of God. But no one has seen him in his full majesty and glory.
John is writing to believers, those who have given their lives to God’s keeping. And, John says, if we love one another, God will live in us. I may not be able to see him, but I can know his indwelling presence through the Holy Spirit (1 John 4:13). As believers, we can live in union with the unseeable God.
But, as John likes to do, he tells us there is a vital condition–if we love one another. Is it possible to be a child of God without loving his other children? Over and over in this short letter, John makes it clear that those who fail to love are not in a relationship with God. To love my fellow believers is not optional.
To love my fellow believers does not mean that I have warm, cuddly feelings for them. I cannot make myself have an emotional attachment to another person. But I can choose to come alongside my fellow brothers and sisters and help them, laying down my life for them.
And when I do that, God’s love will be perfected in me. As I love others, God’s love is flowing through me. And it does not leave me unchanged. As I love others, God’s love cleans away the dross and impurities in my life, conforming me to his image. His love will be perfected, or completed, in me.
“Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:7-8 NET
