Is Seeing Believing?

John 20:24-29

Verse 27  Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

    Yesterday we witnessed how a lack of faith can cause us to slip from standing on firm ground.  Today we see Jesus expose the whole idea of faith in a nutshell.

    We often hear Thomas referred to as the doubting disciple but it could be that we are being a bit critical of a man that was thinking in a way that most of us would also have been thinking.  Take a minute and put yourself in Thomas’ sandals.  He had walked with Jesus for about three years.  He had willingly obeyed when it didn’t make sense to him, like the time he told the others that they may as well follow Jesus and die with Him (John 11:16).  He was not totally lacking faith in God or Jesus.  He had seen Jesus heal many and had witnessed Jesus raise the young man from Nain (Luke 7:11-15) and Lazarus (John 11:38-44) from the dead.  I think even in seeing those miraculous events we would have been having the same doubting thoughts that Thomas did.  Other prophets had raised people from the dead but none had raised themselves from the dead.  And that would be hard to believe was even possible.  Who could have that capability?  Of course Jesus could, but Thomas had only known Jesus as the man, it would be Jesus as God that alone could accomplish this feat.  And Thomas wasn’t quite there.

    I think if we were all honest with ourselves we would see where Thomas was at and see that we would have likely been standing with him thinking it was just too impossible to be true.  We do that in our spiritual lives too, don’t we?  We pray for that unbelieving family member, but we doubt they will ever come to love Jesus.  We say we believe in Jesus, but doubt that He can do anything in our lives.  We doubt He really desires us to be holy when it isn’t popular.  We say we believe He will take care of us and yet we worry about what is going to become of our situations in life.

    But Jesus knew the truth of Thomas and his belief (and He knows the truth about us too).  Jesus even offered proof to Thomas and then He spoke firm truth into the situation.  Jesus said that those who believe without seeing are blessed.  The same is true for us.  It is in believing without seeing that says what we really think about Jesus.  It is only when our focus is so on Him that our doubts fall aside and we can say with Thomas, “My Lord and My God!"  Now that is worship!

Making It Personal

    Have you ever thought about how Thomas was thinking about the resurrection?  What times in your life have you doubted?  What would it take for you to believe without seeing?

Making It Personal Kids

    Is it hard to believe something that you can’t see?  Have you ever asked for proof?  Have you ever believed something Mom or Dad said without seeing what they were talking about?  That is how we have to trust Jesus.

Closing Prayer

    Father, thank You for shining the light of truth on our doubt.  Give us the wisdom to look to You with firm belief so that we don’t slip into doubt easily.  In Jesus’ name, amen.