Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.

It is not God, I think, whom they love who do this. And I know I am guilty of it, too: to love a concept of someone, something, not anything truly of essence like the reality. Now, I am a believer, and so I conceive that God is an actuality, even if such existence is beyond my ken. But often, He is a convenient vision in my eye, one who is always on my side, and who opposes whom I oppose. It is instead of relying on such apparitions that I must love my brother and sister, for it is here that God may oft be found — for Our Lord said that whosoever does kindness to the least of them does it to Him (see Matthew 25:40). I think it is nothing of love, that of whoever says, “I love God”, and loves none else — and I think it neither God of whom he speaks. All that remains, the “I”, is the tell of whom he truly intends when he speaks of the adoration: when he speaks in words that have no basis, that hide, instead of show, his heart.