The Lessons of Lent: Do you Believe?

The Lessons of Lent: Do you Believe?
John 20

The situation that played out in the case of Thomas, Didymus, one of the twelve, cannot be overlooked as we endeavor to learn from all that happened during the passion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Thomas wasn't there when Jesus appeared to them at the first instance. We were not told why he wasn't with them and so we could not blame him for what Christ didn't blame him for. He was to be the leader of those who didn't see but believed and so should have received the greater commendation, which he missed.

Coming in he was told of the resurrection and the coming of Jesus. It was clear from earlier portions of the chapter, John 20 , that other disciples including John who later wrote the account didn't believe too until they saw....

[My Offline Bible] John 20
8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. 9 For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

They all didn't get all that Jesus was telling them about rising up again until they saw. It was difficult also for Thomas to be outrightly better than them in that except that all of them testified to having seen the living Christ except they'll be lying in conspiracy!

And that's significant. If Thomas, one of the twelve, could raise a dissenting voice to the resurrection of Jesus and call it a cunningly crafted conspiracy, you can imagine what the world would have been saying by now.

Even without that,  all manners of conspiracy theories are everywhere both from religious circles and from secular settings.

So Jesus had to do damage control for Thomas to believe and for the testimony of the disciples to be perfected in one voice. One can imagine what this would have done in the midst of the disciples those eight days before Jesus appeared to them again.

It isn't possible for everyone to witness everything, meaning, there are lots of true and faithful things that each one of us would not be able to witness first hand. So God created the pathway of reporting or testifying what we have witnessed and also gave each the ability to believe.

Isaiah asked in prophesying concerning the death and resurrection of Christ, who has believed our report and to whom is the hand of the Lord revealed? Isaiah 53:1

It takes a report to believe. And Thomas got that report but as William Burkitt's note on the New Testament puts it, 'he had his faith on his fingertips'. He wouldn't believe except he saw or put his fingers in the hole of His hands...

But Jesus, when He appeared, told him the opportunity he lost in wanting to believe by seeing and touching. Those who didn't see but believed are more blessed than those who had to believe after seeing. He would have been the very first of such people!

And to us...the latter part of the passage told us how Jesus did many more signs and that those they wrote were for us to believe...

The question is, do you believe? From what we saw in the experience of the disciples, they couldn't understand the scriptures that spake of Christ's death and resurrection. They never believed He was to die and even after His resurrection they expected Him to form an earthly government....

Those negative expectations which came by listening to the Jewish superstitions and interpretation of who Christ was to be and not by a first hand understanding of scriptures made their believing in the resurrection a difficult hill to climb.

What are you hearing of God's word? Are you satisfied with the interpretations of others laden with their prejudices and their deception? The Bible is an open book and reading it with the Spirit of wisdom and revelations opens us to wondrous things from in there for our faith to be strong and effective.

Lots of superstitions have gone into the church based on satanic deceptions, self aggrandizement of preachers, financial motivations, ego and all manners of motives to build personal empires in Christ's name using God's people and it's time we went back into God's word for personal understanding that has the capacity to build a lasting faith.

We don't have to keep our faith on our fingertips and on our eyelashes, faith must be in the heart ready to check the veracity of every report with the integrity of the Word of God exalted...

Such faith lasts eternity...immovable as settled as the Word of God which is settled in heaven forever, from where the faith came from in the first place....

Faith is settling with the settled Word of God irrespective of what we feel or are able to see...do you believe?

Be sure that what you believe and are assured of had come from the hearing of the understanding of scriptures, so that the hope and the expectations in our hearts will be what the Word recommends to avoid a shipwreck of faith...!

[My Offline Bible] Romans 10
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

[My Offline Bible] 1 Timothy 1
19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:

Good morning!

Prepare to attend the NEXT edition of

The Bible Class, TBC
Non Denominational Bible Discussion Class

83, Adeniyi Jones Avenue
Opposite Trevo office
IKEJA Lagos.

Thursday 23rd April 2015

6:00pm afterwork hours on the way home...

Come, refer friends also...let's discover what the Word is saying in sincerity and so refresh our souls and rekindle the fire of our faith in God!

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Remain blessed and keep holding forth the Word of life in this crooked and perverse world! Peace to you!