Huh?

Monday 29 December 2008

If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

1 John 4:20

This verse has been swimming around inside my head over the past few weeks. I understand what it is saying in broad terms, but in another way it seems strange to me. It is far easier for me to love God than it is to love other people.

And I understand that this is talking about Christian love, brotherly and sisterly love within the Body, the fact that we share way more than we don't share. But still, it seems sort of naive to me in some ways. Maybe I've just gone all hermitically sealed, but I find it, like, uh, 486 billion times easier to trust God than I do to trust human beings. So ... what do you think when you read this verse?

5 comments

  1. I agree with you that it IS easier to love and trust God Whom we cannot see. That's the point, Sue. To love our fellow human beings is a whole lot tougher. They can be annoying in their demands, selfish and unreasonable and endlessly needy. Yet our ability to transcend that challenge, to love them (not necessarily like them!) and be good to them as God would be good to them is the indication that our love of God is not some kind of narcissism, that we have allowed God to make changes in ourselves, made us more like God in our unconditional love.
    It is a tough demand and one I am so often not up to.

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  2. Oh, okay, I get what he's getting at. How can we say we love God if that love has not done anything to change us, our hearts towards our fellow human. I geddit (bit thick sometimes)

    Maybe my love of God is just some kind of narcissism :) At least, that's how I feel today :)

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  3. I looked in the mirror when I dug up that word (narcissism). ;)

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  4. Yes, it is a mirror that runs its way all round the world, reflecting us back to ourselves :)

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  5. I read this today in my regular blog reading and thought of you. I thought you might like to read it as well.
    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/12/the-meaning-of.html

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