Reading about the heart pebble the children created last week reminded me of a reading I used several times in services around Valentine’s Day (1 John 4: 7-12). Not surprisingly it’s a reading about love, but it also seems very appropriate for a time like now. The reading talks about how God is love, and goes on to say something I find amazing; that as we love one another, God lives in us.
How incredible is that, that as we show love to our family, our friends, our neighbours, even folks we don’t know, God is living in us? Sometimes we wonder where God is when life is a struggle, just like now. But I’ve seen and heard about lots of people showing love to one another over the last few weeks – neighbours getting shopping for each other, people calling up for a chat, children creating rainbows as messages of hope and encouragement; schools keeping in touch with families; all sorts of workers going above and beyond their normal responsibilities, the excellent care of the NHS, and many more examples – each in some way an act of love. And if God is love then God lives in us in each of these acts and through each of them God is present with us, God is made real in our lives, even in the midst of struggle.
1 John 4:7-12 New International Version (NIV)
God’s Love and Ours
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
