SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/23/2021 11:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “Thomas”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 10:3b
Message of the
verse: “Thomas
and Matthew the tax collector;”
I have to say that when I began to
look at the things about Thomas that I did not ever think that it would take
this long, but because of the week-end my Spiritual Diaries were much shorter,
which will also make this last SD on Thomas shorter. I just want to go over the fact that Thomas
gets a bad rap when he is called “Doubting Thomas” as all of the disciples
doubted the truth of Jesus being raised from the dead, and not just
Thomas. His story in the 20th
chapter of John’s gospel kind of stands out more than the others so people have
a tendency to only remember the story about Thomas.
Now it was because all of the
disciples had great doubts of Christ’s promise that He would be raised from the
dead on the third day, Jesus allowed Thomas to remain in his doubt for another
eight days. Then when Jesus appeared
again to the disciples, He singled out this very dear soul, the one who loved
Him enough to die for Him and who was now utterly shattered in spirit. Jesus said “Reach here your finger, and see
My hands, and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not
unbelieving, but believing” (John 20:26-27).
Now we see one of the greatest confessions ever made when Thomas
exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” At this
time all of his doubt was gone and he knew with full certainty that Jesus was
God, that Jesus was Lord, and that Jesus was alive! After this the Lord gently rebuked Thomas by
saying “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who do not see, and yet
believed” (28-29). I think that this
rebuke was not only for Thomas but for all of the other disciples that were
there with Jesus because the doubts that Thomas had, though openly declared,
had been no greater than theirs.
We will conclude with a quotation
from John MacArthur: “If Jesus is not
God and is not alive, the gospel is a foolish and futile deception, the
furthest thing from any good news. ‘If
Christ has not been raised,’ Paul told the Corinthians skeptics, ‘your faith is
worthless; you are still in your sins…If we have hoped in Christ in this life
only, we are of all men most to be pitied’ (1 Cor. 15:17, 19).
“Tradition holds that Thomas
preached as far away as India and bears his name, traces its origin to
him. He is said to have had died from a
spear being thrust through him, a fitting death for the one who insisted on
placing his hand in the spear wound of his Lord.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Although
I do not know a whole lot about Thomas and the rest of the disciples’ lives
after the church age got started it seems clear to me that they all had a
ending that brought glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. I marvel at how they all went from these
unbelieving apostles to become great for the cause of Christ, something that I truly
desire to do.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that
the Lord will use me for the cause of Christ in whatever way that He sees fit,
in every way that He planned for me to do before the world was made.
8/23/2021 11:41
AM
No comments:
Post a Comment