Seeing God



"God will not conquer evil by crushing it under-foot-any god of man's idea could do that-but by conquest of heart over heart, of life over life, of life over death, of love over all." - George MacDonald, Wisdom to Live By

Most people believe they have not seen God. No matter how faithful, if there is not a vision or out of body experience, we don’t think we’ve seen God. In fact, the first part of 1 John 4:12 says, “No one has seen God at any time (NET)”. And while this is a somewhat vague and easy way to describe faith, I don’t think it fully captures what seeing God means. We need to take 1 Corinthians 3:16 to heart here:

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?”

God lives in us. When we perform Christlike actions, is that not us showing the God in us? If we have Christ living in us, then how come it is not shown at all times? People often talk about how does a god who is perfectly good create a world that has bad in it, but in reality it is the absence of God that has the bad in it. It is obvious that we are not completely godly. I think genes relate really well to this idea. What is inside of us is what will show. In genetics there are genotypes and phenotypes. Genotypes are the stuff inside, what the gene actually is. Phenotype is what actually shows. If you think back all the way to your high school biology class, you can recall that I can have the genes AA, Aa, and aa. AA and Aa have the same phenotype. They will look the same to the naked eye. The recessive gene, or aa, will be overtaken anytime we introduce AA. So when we relate this to being Christlike, if we have God inside us, is he the dominant or recessive gene? If we need to appear Christlike, I think we need to be completely full of Christ. This is where the gene comparison ends, because although now you can change genes through processes like CRISPR, we're just going to say you can't. Through God, we can at any time be full of Christ. We can make a conscious choice to have light overtake the darkness inside us.

It’s a mistake to think that we don’t have darkness, because the sad truth is that we all do. However, the issue is that sometimes we think that we can get rid of darkness, but in reality, we can only replace darkness with light. There is no abolition of darkness without light. And we know that we can get this light through God. The second part of 1 John 4:12 reads, “if we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfected in us.” So while we may not “see” God, does that matter in the end? Although you must make that decision for yourself in your journey of faith, I will end by reminding you that we can know someone exists because of their effect on others, if you have seen how God changes the lives of those around you, then isn’t that the same as seeing Him?

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