Joy In The Unseen God
God’s story with humanity began in a garden. It was a place of peace, fruitfulness, and fellowship. Each day God would come into the garden and walk with Adam through the landscape, enjoying the beauty and abundance of creation. This was an image of glory and joy.
The book of Genesis chronicles the story of how sin entered the world and broke our communion with God. The story that follows is one of God reaching out to broken and desperate people, offering the way to freedom and truth even when people rejected him. God has been actively working towards redeeming his people back to this garden for all of history, and it all culminated when Jesus was born as a child in Bethlehem.
You might think that being there when Jesus walked the earth would give you an advantage in your faith. Supposedly you would be more likely to follow and believe! However, plenty of people (if not most) who walked with Jesus were offended by him and turned away quickly. In the end, everyone abandoned him except for his mother and John, who stayed at the foot of the cross. Even Peter, who devotedly followed Jesus, lacked the full revelation of who Jesus was until he had ascended into heaven and given the Holy Spirit.
It was there on the day of Pentecost that Peter preached the revelation of Christ crucified. And through the following years of Peter’s life, he became more intimate and united with God through the Holy Spirit. You might say that having the Holy Spirit is a far greater advantage in the pursuit of knowing God than any face-to-face experience with Jesus because the Spirit teaches all the things Jesus said, and he writes the word of God on our hearts. More than likely, our desire to be with Jesus in that time flows from the revelation the Holy Spirit has given us.
Not least of the works of the Spirit is how God provokes our hearts to love and encounter Jesus. 1 Peter 1:8 ESV confidently says, “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.”
Somehow—through a grace-filled work I cannot understand—we can fall in love with a glorious God that we cannot see, hear, or touch in an earthly sense. Beyond just knowing God, we are filled with inexpressibly glorious joy.
Peter both testifies and prophecies to our hearts that we can and will encounter God in a way that is so real our lives will be transformed in love.
The story is far from over. Jesus is coming back, the wedding supper of the lamb awaits us, and the New Jerusalem will be our home. Still, until then, we are not called to merely make do with religious practices. God has poured out his Spirit on us so that we can be filled with power. He has offered us his very self so that when he appears, he will be no stranger but a friend, brother, and savior that we know and love.
