Stephen
Terry, Director
To
Know God
Commentary
for the April 11, 2026, Sabbath School Lesson
"Whoever does not love does not know God,
because God is love." 1 John 4:8
It is an age-old aphorism that
the longer a couple are united in marriage the more they resemble one another
in character. Some would carry that further and include appearance as well, but
that opens up the whole nature versus nurture argument. Sharing a similar diet,
environment, taste in clothing, music, hobbies, and friends may have an
influence over decades, but I am not sure that would make people duplicates of
one another. However, even when separated, one party may know the other so well
that they can comfortably speak for how the other might feel on a given topic.
The Bible hints that the same thing can happen for those who have a close
relationship with God.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the
church in Corinth, put it this way, "And we all, who with unveiled faces
contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with
ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2
Corinthians 3:18) Succinctly, being in relationship with God changes us, and
the change is not random. It is changing into his likeness, his image. This is
not something new. It was God's intent from the very beginning. "Then God said,
'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over
the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the
wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God
created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and
female he created them." (Genesis 1:26-27)
When I was a child, our parents
would sometimes leave me in charge over my siblings while they were away. In my
childish way, I thought this control over them allowed me to bend them to
whatever my selfish will dictated. This often did not turn out well as they had
wills of their own and had different ideas of how the babysitter-to-child
relationship should function. I learned that allowing my own selfish desires to
run rampant often did not produce the results that they or I desired. Those
lessons have led me to understand that humanity having rule over Creation was
not for the purpose of creating an authoritarian system where it did not matter
what happened to the rest of Creation if mankind got to rule over it.
Responsibility for the care and nurturing of what has been placed in our charge
is key to God's order of things, just as I eventually learned about successful
babysitting. This responsibility is an outgrowth of the image God would have us
bear.
As our opening verse declared, "God
is love." Those three words have come to encapsulate everything I know about
God, and everything I need to strive for in my personal spiritual development
if I am to reflect that reality, his image. Sadly, despite Jesus' ministry two
thousand years ago that included his many attempts to define God's character and
our responsibility to reflect that character, we are very unloving to one
another at times. It seems we prefer to go about pointing at one another and
shouting "Sinner! Sinner! Sinner!" Amid the accusations, we forget our own sins
and instead focus on whether there are any stones nearby we might fling. When
Jesus was confronted by a similar situation when a
woman was brought before him accused of adultery, he knew that the character
exhibited by the religious leaders who brought her was not God's character.
Knowing that God was sinless and that he would not harm the woman, he pointed
out that the one who had the responsibility to punish her would need to be the
same. Therefore, the one who was sinless would need to be the person to cast
the first stone. (John
8:3-11) Since we are all sinners (Romans
3:23), no one can claim the sinlessness of God that would allow them to
cast that stone. They all slowly drifted away, leaving Jesus alone with her.
Even he, though sinless, did not condemn her, revealing that God is so loving,
he is all about redemption, not condemnation.
The Apostle John put it like
this, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not
send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through
him." (John 3:16-17) Far too many love to cite verse sixteen and warn people
they will be condemned to eternal damnation if they do not accept Jesus in a
mad attempt to drive people to Jesus through fear and intimidation. These
rarely cite verse seventeen which decries such condemnation as being contrary
to the purpose of Jesus' incarnation. This reveals that they have likely never felt
the love of Jesus in their hearts and are merely acting out what they imagine a
Christian to be in a vain attempt to earn brownie points with God. This is why
Jesus cautioned us that if we are to be perfect like God, we must love even our
enemies. (Matthew
5:43-48)
Instead of defining perfection
as being exacting obedience to every jot and tittle of the law, we need to
define it as Jesus did, love for God and love for all of humanity. Lest we be
tempted to quibble over the meaning of love, Paul spells it out for us. "Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with
the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails."(1 Corinthians 13:4-8a) Are we impatient with others? Are we
unkind? Are we jealous of what others have that we do not? Do we puff ourselves
up or, even worse, put others down to do so? Do we always consider our needs
before others? Do we lose our temper? Do we keep replaying in our minds the wrongs
others have done to us? Do we protect, trust, and inspire hope in others? To be
perfect in love means never failing in any of these things.
If you are like me, then as I
have cited these, you have realized that perfection in love seems a difficult
goal to achieve if not impossible. But far from being depressing, our realization
of our failings can give us the humility to willingly come to Jesus that we
might find healing and restoration to what God created us to be, the loving and
responsible beings he entrusted Earth and Creation to the care of. Try as we
might, we cannot become those loving beings on our own. We would be like an
automobile with a blown engine trying to fix itself. No one can repair that
vehicle like the one who created it is capable of, the one who knows the reason
for every part, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. The rest of us
need a manual, and the Bible helps in that regard, but even the manual may not
reveal what was in the author's mind, what the expectation was when the vehicle
was designed. It is the same with God.
No one understands our hearts
and minds like the one who created us. He knows what we are and what we are not
as well as the heights and depths we are capable of. That knowledge allows him
the ability to recast our hearts that have become hardened like stone and
return them once again to be hearts of flesh (Ezekiel
36:26), capable of loving others, eventually even loving our enemies should
the need arise. Love is the very foundation of all things heavenly. Learning to
love now is preparation to dwell in such heavenly environs. Heaven would not be
heaven with impatience, unkind words or thoughts, jealousy, fits of temper, or any
of the other failings we are so prone to when we try to navigate life without
giving our hearts to the one who made them.
When faced with such a mighty
undertaking, we might be tempted to be discouraged because long experience has
taught us how little we can trust the strength of our own will in doing what we
know we should, but that may be the very thing that ensures our success, or rather
God's success on our behalf. When the Israelites were backed up against the Red
Sea with Pharoah's army in hot pursuit, they trembled in fear, knowing they did
not have the strength to stand, it was in their admission that they were too
weak to face their greatest fears that God spoke to them through the words of
Moses, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." (Exodus 14:14)
Heaven without love is not
heaven. God without love is not God. A Christian without love is not a
Christian. These three are one and love enables and sustains Creation which
waits expectantly for us to come to the realization of who and what we are so
what is missing can be found and harmony restored. This is God's opus, and we
are notes in that symphony that the universe is waiting to hear once again as
in the beginning.