Heaven Land Devotions - Except I Shall See...

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Thomas was not among the other ten disciples when Jesus Christ appeared to them. He showed Himself alive with some mighty "infallible proofs." They touched Him and watched Him eat a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb. They were overjoyed.

When Thomas heard about it, his response was disbelief. To hear their Lord was alive and showed Himself to all ten men was not enough for him to accept. I can almost feel a kind of violent emotional reaction to it. Even though Jesus did tell them He would rise again. I sense a bit of hurt as well.

There is powerful ownership in his demand, "Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe!" Eight days later Jesus appeared among them but this visit was an answer to Thomas' gut wrenching line-drawn- in-the-sand statement. Jesus came for that kind of violent love demand.

This was a powerful demonstration of not believing just because everybody else did. But there being only one among them with a fierce passion insisting on his own encounter, settling for nothing less who demanded, "Except I shall see Him!"

This is a mark of growing Christian maturity. Thomas was called "Doubting Thomas," but I ask the question, "Is it such a bad thing to doubt?" Oswald Chambers said, "Doubt is not always a sign that a man is wrong; it may be a sign that he is thinking."

There is something the Lord stands up and takes notice of when a person goes up the mountain alone to pray and seek the Lord with a made up mind. Jesus is a rewarder of this kind of determination.

“If Christ is not all to you He is nothing to you. He will never go into partnership as a part Saviour of men. If He be something He must be everything, and if He be not everything He is nothing to you.” ― Charles Spurgeon