“You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.” (1.8)
You haven’t even seen Jesus Christ, yet you love him, Peter says. You don’t see him right now, and yet you believe in him, and yet you rejoice. There is something about faith in Christ that will never make sense to those who do not believe. How can you love so deeply someone who you have never seen? How can you believe in him and rejoice even though you don’t see him now? Where do those impulses of the heart come from? They come from the new birth, from being born again.
Love for Christ is the natural impulse of a heart that has been reborn.
Joy in Christ is the natural impulse of a heart that has been reborn.
Being born again means the cultivation of new affections, new desires for God. Your heart has been given a new sensory ability, and it moves in the direction of God. You are given new longings, spiritual longings, and new senses, spiritual senses. These things naturally accompany being a re-born human. You begin to hunger spiritually for God; you begin to thirst for his presence. You are given new eyes to begin to see the world the way that God sees it.
Suddenly you find that you want to please God. You find yourself longing for his word. You find your heart moved by the thought of Him and what he has done for you. You are affected by the preaching of his word. You desire God. You desire the things of God.
If you have no spiritual desires, no spiritual senses, if Christianity is just a religion and not a new way of living in and experiencing the world, then you must examine your heart. Is there any evidence that you have been “born again?”
If you do find evidence, a hunger for him, be encouraged. Find assurance not in a past experience of doing something, but in the present faith that moves you to love Christ, though you do not see him; the faith that moves you to believe and rejoice even when that belief makes no sense to anyone else.
This is not your doing. God is at work in your life. Keep coming back to this rock that is Christ. He will satisfy your hunger, and quench your thirst.
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