Your Love Helps Others See God

Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – October 3, 2017

By Shana Schutte

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.  John 13:34-35

Each morning I cuddle up on our back porch in my favorite chair with a cup of coffee, my bible, and my journal to spend time with the Lord. This morning I’ve been thinking about love and how it “blankets”. What I mean is, it covers all other virtues. For example, where there is love, there is mercy. Where there is love, there is generosity. Where there is love, there is hope and patience, and faithfulness, and every other good thing. 

And . . . where there is love, there God is, because God is love (1 John 4:8). Through love, we show God’s face to one another. 

“Do you want to see what God looks like? Here, let me bear your burden in love.”

“Do you want to know more about God and experience His love? Let me help you move across town. Let me babysit your children. Let me pray for you. Let me give you grace and forgiveness and speak to you tenderly. Let me be your friend.”

Love covers all virtues and through it, we reveal God to one another.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13). My bonus daughter, Allie, gave birth to a baby boy a few months ago. I am so grateful she has warmly embraced me as Grandma, which has, on numerous occasions made me cry tears of joy. (Only the Lord can make a woman a grandmother who has never been a mother!)

Through Allie’s gracious acceptance, I have seen God’s face more clearly, and as I have looked into His eyes through her kindness, I hear Him saying to me, “See how much I love you!”

When God’s kids love one another, they show God’s face to one another.

My husband Clark loves me unselfishly. He’s very attentive to my needs and teaches me by example what it means to serve. One afternoon before we tied the knot, I took his car to the doctor’s office. While pulling out of the physician’s parking lot, I got in a fender bender. I felt horrible. I phoned Clark and apologized repeatedly. “I’m sooooo sorry. I’m so sorry!” I said. He told me not to worry about it, that it was okay.

By the time I arrived at his house, he had a card waiting for me with a bear on the front. “Do you need a hug?” it read. Inside, he had written a lovely note assuring me that the cosmetic crunch I had given his Toyota wasn’t a big deal, that I was more important. Through Clark’s gracious response I saw God’s face, and I heard Him saying to me, “See how much I love you!”

As I think of these stories and others like them when my family and friends have extended grace, kindness, and mercy to me when I didn’t deserve it, I am reminded of all the ways God has tenderly revealed Himself to me.

And, I am convicted to love others well too, because through what I do and say, others can see the Lord. Is there someone in your life you need to show love to so they can see God’s face more clearly and hear Him say, “See how much I love you!” 

“And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us” (1 John 3:23).

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