1 Peter 1:8 - Believing is Seeing

1 Peter 1:8

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,”

There is an amazing scene in the movie Amistad. If you haven’t seen it, check it out at www.imdb.com . African prisoners await trial to see if they will be slaves or free. There is a bible in the prison and one of the men begins to look through it. He cannot read English, but he pieces the story together through the pictures. He begins to explain the story to his friend – and I’ll not spoil the scene for you. But through the pictures, this prisoner fell in love with Jesus.

How did you come to know Christ? However it happened, I bet you believed on Jesus without seeing Him. I bet you grew to love Him without laying eyes on His physical presence. If that is the case, Peter says you are blessed. As a matter of fact, Jesus says the same thing:

“Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” - John 20:29

Of course, in a different sense, we really have seen Jesus. We see Him in people all around us: in the youth worker who loved us when we were awkward and searching, in our parents who modeled Christ-like behavior every day of our lives, and in our friends who stand by us and encourage us to live the better life. And there have been moments in your life when you extended grace to another and became Christ to them.

Life is filled with these beautiful moments, moments where the Kingdom of Heaven comes to earth. That is the astonishing thing about God – not only does He save us from our horrible sins and bring us into relationship with Him – He gives us the privilege to be the hands and feet of Christ as he works in us!

I’ll let you in on a secret, the reason we do the ranch the way we do is to give you the opportunity to be Christ to the guests. And another secret, our hope is that you will do the same thing when you go home. That is our greatest prayer for you – that you will allow God to use you to bring about His Kingdom every day of your life.

As you love Jesus and believe in Him – though you have never seen Him – I pray that you will be filled with inexpressible and glorious joy!

“Joy is the serious business of heaven.” – CS Lewis