Giving Our World a Glimpse of God

Today's Three-minute Bible Study
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Title: Giving Our World a Glimpse of God ------------------- Date: 5/7/2003
Keywords: “love”
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Passage: 1 John 4:7-12*

7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

8. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

9. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

10. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

12. No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

Questions

1. What is the recurring theme and command of this passage?

 

2. Why do you think John mentions "beholding God" near the end of this passage?

 

Practical help

John commands Christians to love each other the way Jesus loved us. In fact, he defines love by Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

Picture a freshly felled tree. The rings which appear on the cut face of the stump are the visible cross-section of the lines that run right up the trunk. But, prior to cutting the tree down, those rings had been hidden from view by the bark.

It is only in the once and for all cutting down of the tree that the rings, which had always been there, can be seen.

In the same way, the coming of Jesus — His perfect life and His perfect death and His resurrection from the dead — makes the love of God obvious. That love is there for the viewing for anyone who has eyes to see.

And, since God has so loved us, we also ought to love each other.

We ought to take the initiative to help others. We ought to invest our resources on behalf of someone else. We ought to enthusiastically give of our time, energy, and money to meet needs. We ought to show love to those who could never ever possibly pay us back.

John concludes this passage with that cryptic saying about "beholding God." What does he mean to say by that? He means that although God has never allowed Himself to be seen in His unveiled glory, when Christians love each other, they give a watching world a glimpse of God.

Loving relationships between Christians are life-giving and powerful. They provide the touch of God to a needy world and the strength of God to enable Christians to deal with temptation.

Our hearts hunger for those kinds of relationships in this relationally broken world. They are available in churches that believe the Bible and honor Christ. Seek them out and you will find the redemptive power that exists when there are friendships with Christ in the center.

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*"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission."