Loved, though not yet seen

Hear verse 8, which might be the most digital sentence in the New Testament: "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy." Peter's readers had never met Jesus. They knew him through witnesses, letters and the Spirit, and their love for him was real.

In the session, Jeff Reed explained verse 8 as an affirmation for anyone in digital ministry. "We've never breathed the same air molecules," he said of Jesus. "But I have a relationship with my Savior." If love for God can be real across distance and time, he asked, why do we doubt that discipleship can happen through a screen?

Flatcap made it personal. "I haven't seen him either," he said. When the world says "what you're doing is a waste of time," he holds on to being loved by Jesus and loving him back: "Regardless of the outcome, I get to be faithful if I choose to be faithful." Distance doesn't make that faith second-class. The whole church since the apostles has loved a Savior it hasn't seen.

Ian Kirk added the other side of it. "If we are being obedient to the Spirit, God is already going before us," he said, and "sometimes we have to rest in the obedience, not necessarily in our understanding." Not seeing is not the same as not being led.

So when you pray with someone on a voice call or answer a hard question in a DM, you're not doing a lesser version of ministry. You're doing what the Spirit has done since Pentecost: making love real across distance. Apply it today: thank God for someone you've never met in person who has helped your faith, and then be that person for someone else.