These words touch and stir something deep inside. "Though you have not seen him, you love him . . .

 

I think these inflicted believers, these persecuted saints to whom Peter writes, discovered a secret that has been lost to our world of owning, and having, and busyness, and traveling, and movie-going, and TV watching, and over-eating, and vacationing.

 

They discovered that if they have Jesus they have all things good. They have all the joy that one could ever have. And that is how these believers are not depressed and despairing. They have joy in Christ.

 

True Christianity is loving Christ and enjoying Christ. Being a Christ-follower is first and foremost a matter of the heart – of love, trust and joy, not a matter of external performances.

 

You see, we get through the hard times knowing Jesus is our most precious possession. The greatest need of the world, the greatest need of every human is to have a heart that prizes Christ. God has nothing better, nothing more delightful and more satisfying to give to us than Jesus Christ. Jesus is life's greatest possession.

 

We don't love an ideal. We don't love a memory of Christ. We love a real person, a living person when we say we love Christ.

 

One commentator referring to this verse said, "No apostle ever remembered Jesus." That's an amazing thought. What he meant is that we remember and cherish the memory of the dead. But you personally know and relate to the living.

 

Jesus is alive. We love Him though we don't see Him. We love Him because He can be known and experienced. He is alive in us as when He walked on the earth.

 

We experience the presence of Christ by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

 

Let me ask you a question. If you had to choose between having Jesus right now physically at your side or the Holy Spirit in your heart, which would you choose?

 

Think about it: Christ physically at your side, actually telling you what to do and showing you how, or the Holy Spirit, invisibly, mystically residing within the deep recesses of your heart? Sounds like a difficult decision.

 

Jesus however has already made the decision for us. He said to his disciples: "It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come; but if I depart, I will send Him to you."

 

John Donne in his Holy Sonnet 15 wrote:

 

 

The Christian life is a real, live, vital union with the living Lord Jesus. This union with Christ is unique among the world's religions. John Stott writes:

 

 

But the Christian does humbly claim, with confidence, to know Jesus Christ. Members of other faiths look back to their founder as a teacher they revere. Christians also regard Jesus as teacher and seek to obey his teaching. But to us Jesus is more than a teacher of the ancient past. Jesus died for our sins upon the cross. He rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father.

 

This is the gospel. He is our living Lord and Savior, whom we know in the closeness of a vital and loving relationship – our most precious possession.