Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Most sports fans will get this reference, but has your favorite team ever been on a losing streak? Remember how frustrated you were, yet so excited when they won their next game? You probably thought to yourself that you would never see the day they won again. But you believed that they would, you had faith that they would. Believing without seeing. Belief and faith in Jesus isn’t just a thought, it’s a commitment. It’s an obedient action through trust. Ask yourself, do you really need to see the nail marks before you believe? Faith is not blind, however all things in faith are not in plain sight. I keep going back to this, but the joy that believers have is not based on present circumstances. The joy comes from the past, present, and future salvation of our souls. Peter was one of the three disciples that saw the glory of God in Christ on the holy mount. Having seen this and coming to a depth of understanding of our position in Christ, he rejoices to remind us that all Christians are born for glory, for we are one with Him. Peter reminds us that as we walk through this Christ-rejecting, sinful world, our miracle of new birth guarantees that we are also being kept “in” this world by the power of God. We are being kept for a glory that is set before us, reserved for us in heaven. Our past redemption, our present sanctification, and our future glorification is ours through Christ Who loved us and gave Himself for us. And we live this life by grace, through faith in the work of the Lord Jesus on the Cross. Our love is not based on what we see of Christ with our physical eyes. Our love for Christ is founded on all that we know of Him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving. Our spiritual understanding is founded on the Word of God and revealed to us by the Spirit of God. We love Him because He first loved us. He died to redeem us, He rose again to give us His life, and He is preparing a heavenly home for us in glory. The moment that we trusted Christ as our Savior, the salvation of our spirit, soul, and body was eternally secure in Him. From that point onward we are: “Accepted by God in the Beloved.” This is not because of our own good works or any sacrifices that we have made. We are accepted by God simply and exclusively because of Christ’s offering of Himself at Calvary as the Lamb of God, unblemished and spotless. The guaranteed outcome of our faith in Christ is the salvation of our spirit, our soul, and our body. Our ‘dead’ human spirit was made alive at our rebirth, returning us into sweet fellowship with our Heavenly Father. At the same time, our faith in Christ secured the salvation of our soul, and we were made a new creation in Christ and given His resurrected life (our new life in Christ), so that instead of following the lust of the flesh we were enabled to walk in newness of life, with the indwelling Holy Spirit. Our eternal salvation does not rely on what we do for God, but on what Christ did for us on the Cross. Such sacrificial love demands our complete and undivided love, not as a legalistic requirement but as our own, pure love-offering to the One Who was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and Who willingly bore the punishment on the Cross for our sins. Christ’s finished work on the Cross demands our everlasting thanks and praise, for although we have not seen Him, we love Him and greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, knowing that it is through Him alone that we have obtained: “As the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our soul.”
Spiritual Steve 