Making God Visible

1 John 4:12 (NIV)

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

No one has ever seen God. That's a bold statement, and it might surprise us at first. What about Moses on the mountain? What about Isaiah's vision of the throne room? What about Ezekiel and the wheels within wheels?

But the Jewish teachers understood something important. Moses saw God's glory, but not God's face. Isaiah saw the hem of God's robe, the train filling the temple. Ezekiel was careful to say he saw "the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord." These are protective phrases, theological qualifiers. They saw manifestations, revelations, glimpses. But God's essence, God as God truly is, remains beyond human sight.

So if no one has ever seen God, how do we know God is real? How do we encounter the invisible?

John gives us the answer, and it is disarmingly simple. If we love one another, God lives in us. Love makes God visible. Not in some abstract, mystical sense, but in concrete, everyday action. When we love our neighbor, we are not just doing something nice. We are participating in a revelation. The unseen God becomes recognizable through human faithfulness.

We are made in God's image. That's what Genesis tells us. But that image is not a static thing we possess like eye color or height. It is something we enact. When love remains just a word, just a sentiment we feel but never act upon, the image stays hidden. But when love becomes active, when it takes the form of kindness and generosity and honest engagement with our neighbors, then the image of God becomes legible. People can read it in our lives.

This is what it means for God's love to be made complete in us. Not that we perfect ourselves, but that God's own character becomes visible through what we do. We become, in a sense, everyday theophanies. Not burning bushes or pillars of fire, but ordinary people through whom the invisible God shows up.

Prayer

Our Father, we cannot see you with our eyes, but we can make you visible through our love. Help us to be faithful in this calling, so that others may catch a glimpse of you through us. Amen.

This devotional was written by Jim Stovall.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

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First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.