1 Peter 1:3, 8-9 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ... 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.
It's a weird situation that we are in as Christians, I can't deny it. There's something really odd about having the most important Person in your life invisible. Inaudible, too. Our contact with Jesus is different than it is for our other important relationships. Our parents, our spouses, our children, friends, neighbors—these are all people that we normally see and hear on a regular basis. In fact, that's how we keep up the relationship. We call it "staying in touch."
But what about the most important relationship of all? Well, we definitely "stay in touch" with Jesus, but the way we do it is different: prayer, reading the Bible, hearing preaching, going to Communion. And we benefit from these things, there's no doubt. But it's still—weird.
Why does God make it this way? I don't know. I can see that there would be a huge practical problem if you have billions of people all wanting to spend quality time in Jesus' physical presence. There's no "this world" solution for that. No doubt God will work these things out in eternity, and I don't need to worry about that. But right now, things are hard.
Because, of course, there are many times when we desperately want and need to see Him face to face. Feel the touch of His hand. Hear His own voice speaking clearly to our ears. And except for extremely rare visions and miracles, we don't have this. And it hurts.
Who would put up with this? If my sister had a boyfriend who was this elusive, I'd tell her to dump him in a heartbeat! And yet, here we stay—we can do no other. There is simply nobody else who loves us the way that Jesus does.
Nobody else would do what Jesus did—leave all the power and glory of heaven behind, and for what? To rescue His enemies! To become a human being, with all of the pain and trouble and frustration that involves. To rescue us from evil at the cost of His own life. To willingly suffer and die a shameful public death on a cross.
Nobody else has ever loved us like that. Jesus heard our need, and He came. He loved us to the end. And then He rose from the dead to live again forever—with us.
This is why Jesus holds our hearts. This is why we wait, patiently or impatiently. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will continue in this strange in-between relationship, until the day Jesus comes back visibly at last, and our joy is full.
WE PRAY: Come quickly, Lord Jesus! Amen.
This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.
Reflection Questions:
1. Have you had other long-distance relationships? How did you keep in touch?
2. When you need to feel close to God, what do you do?
3. What do you want to do in the first day you see Jesus with your own eyes?
Today's Bible Readings: Joshua 19-21 Luke 11:29-54
To Download Devotion MP3 to your computer, right click here and select "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" or "Download Linked File As"