1 Peter 1:8-9 “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, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” Today's episode talks about how important it is to believe in God before you can see Him. It also talks about how we can see God in our day to day life if we are looking for Him. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Believing Without Seeing
1 Peter 1:8-9 “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, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
I asked my friend to choose a verse for me while I was at retreat. She chose this one. I am not sure I knew this one and yet I love it. I know, I say that a lot. It is true, God is so good and there are countless verses from the Bible that I love. I love this one because it ends with the salvation of our souls and who wouldn’t love that. As much as I love this verse I have been stuck on what to say about it. I think one of the hardest parts of faith is believing in things we can’t see. Having that faith that what God says is true even when you don’t see any proof of it.
This reminds me of what I talked about yesterday. Abraham and Sarah trusted that God was going to make him the father of nations even though he didn’t have any children at the time. They trusted for a long time before they saw any proof that God would keep His word. Well that is not completely true, God had given them proof over the years that he would keep His word, maybe not about this specific thing but about many other things. God had been providing for Abraham and also talking with him for most of his life I think.
God told Abraham to leave his home but did not tell him where he was going and Abraham listened and God always provided for him. Wherever Abraham went he was prosperous. He listened to God, he trusted God and he was rewarded by God. Did Abraham always do it perfectly, nope. When they got tired of waiting for God to give Sarah a baby, Abraham slept with Sarah’s handmaid so that Abraham would have a baby. That did not turn out well. When Abraham and Sarah had to go into Egypt to evade a famine Abraham was concerned they might kill him and take Sarah as their wife, so he told her to lie and say she was his sister. This did not end well either.
Every time we try to take things into our own hands, or force our own timing onto God’s plans things do not end well. When Abraham and Sarah were able to believe in God’s word while they weren’t seeing proof of it, then things went better and they were rewarded for their patience and their faith. The same is true for us. We are being called to have faith in things that we cannot. We may be able to see God’s faithfulness in our lives, but we might not be able to see proof for that specific promise.
I think this is where I am getting stuck with this passage. It says, “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.” I guess I am struggling because I think we do see God in our lives. I get that we don’t see him physically, and maybe that is what they mean, but we do see him, right? Or maybe not everyone does see Him in their lives. God is working in our lives every single day. If we are looking for it, we will see it. When we start looking we will begin to see Him in the big things and the little things. So, I guess my question is do I love Him even though I haven’t seen Him, or do I love him because I have seen Him working in my life? It sounds like today might not be one of those days where you end this podcast feeling you know the meaning of the scripture verse any better than you did before you started it. Which I think is ok, I hope is ok. Our goal here is to walk boldly with Jesus. My goal is to explore the scripture with you and to learn together. Today I feel this is a scripture we can pray on and ask God to reveal the meaning of it and how we can use it to make our lives better.
I did look up the meaning of this scripture as I was lost as to how to start or what to say. There are many commentaries that will give you a more in depth look into this scripture. I felt the Holy spirit was leading me to talk about where we see God in our lives instead of talking about where we don’t see Him. I think God gives us plenty of chances to have faith in things when we can’t see the proof. For me, this is easier to do the more I look at all the places I have seen God in my life. When I look back and see all the places He has shown up and kept His promises, then it is easier for me to believe He will take care of this too.
God is working in my life and He is working in your life to. The question is did we know it was God when we saw Him? Did we know that kind person who paid for our coffee was the face of God? Did we know the person that held the door of the elevator was the face of God? Did we know the person who was in line in front of us at the store was the face of God? Did we know the stranger that said a kind word, was the face of God? Did we know the breakthrough we received at work was a gift from God? Did we know it was God who helped us through that last difficult season? Did we know it was God who made that awesome thing happen?
I am blessed to have had parents who saw God working in everything they did! I am blessed to have parents who saw God everywhere they went. They knew without a shadow of a doubt that God loved them and they loved Him. They did an awesome job of passing this down to me and so I also know without a shadow of a doubt that I am loved by God. I love God very much and I don’t know if that is because I haven’t seen him or because I have. I don’t think it matters. What I feel the Holy Spirit is revealing to me, to share with you, is that if we want to be able to trust in things we can’t see, then we need to first start trying to see God in our lives. Where can we see Him? Where has He helped us in the past? What blessings has He already given us? If we want to have faith that God will keep this promise we can look back to see what promises He has already kept for us.
I am not sure if this episode actually explained the verse above or if it left you more confused. Hopefully, at the very least it gave you something to think about and something to take to prayer. I hope it also encouraged you to take a look at your life and try to see God in the day to day of life. Also look back and see if you can tell where God was in your past. What difficult season did He help you out of? What bad decision did He use for your good? If we look for Him, we will see Him.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, I ask you to help clear up any confusion I might have caused. Lord, I ask you to shine a light on all the places you are showing up in our lives. Help us to see you every single day. Help us to love you even when we don’t see you. Help us to believe in what we don’t see. Lord, I pray that you speak to each one of individually. I pray that each person who listens to this episode and every episode hears exactly what they need to hear. Lord, you are amazing and we love you so much. We are so grateful that you are showing up for us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday. Remember Jesus loves you and so do I. Have a blessed weekend!