God is Love

Today I read 1 John 4 which is all about love and how we interact with each other and with God. It contains the phrase, if we say we love God but hate our brother, we are a liar, because if we cannot love our brother, whom we have seen, how can be love God, who we have not seen? And John is, of course, right. If we fail to love those around us that we see on a daily basis and that we interact with, how can we love God who we don't see? We can't. We need to be honest with ourselves and admit that we cannot love a God who we have never seen, if we can't even learn to love those around us.

Now some might say that it is easy to love God because He is good. To that I would answer as Jesus did 2000 years ago, that even the hypocrites love those that are good to them. But it takes real charity to do good to those that hate you and despitefully use you. It is a very hard thing to do, but if we one day want to be as God is, then we need to be able to do that. God loves everyone, and I think we can all agree that there are those that despitefully use Him and curse His very name and existence and blame Him for all the bad things that happen in the world. But we know that He does not necessarily cause bad things to happen to us, but He does not step in and always stop bad things from happening. He will let the natural consequences of our actions take effect if it suits His plans. We have to learn from our mistakes and our actions and God wants to help us do that.

The other part of this chapter that I wanted to talk about was in verse 12 where a mistranslation has cause a very big stumbling block for most of the world. In verse 12, John says that no man has seen God at any time. However, somewhere along the way from when John penned that verse to now, a key phrase has been removed. I don't know if it was removed maliciously, although I suspect it was, or if it was an accident, but it was removed nonetheless. Joseph Smith re-added the phrase to help the verse make sense and fit with what we know of Old Testament history. Joseph Smith amended the verse to say that no one has seen God at any time except those that believe. This is how the verse originally looked and how it makes sense. Because even if we ignore modern revelation, we know of several people in the Old Testament, not the least of which is Adam and Eve, that have seen God. No Christians deny this and yet they wholeheartedly embrace this verse in John without seeing the contradiction. I am very grateful for a modern day prophet who re-translated the Bible and was able to clarify certain truths that had been left out.

As I write this blog entry today, I am reminded of the hymn "God is Love". This chapter was mainly about the love we have for each other and for God. When we are filled with the Spirit of God, we are filled with the love that He feels for us. When we feel that love, it will spread and be obvious to those around us. The love of God is contagious and can easily spread to one another. And if we all focused on that, wouldn't this world be a better place? Until tomorrow.