Faithful on Fridays Blog

After His resurrection Jesus made several appearances; first to Mary Magdalene followed by His ten disciples. She announced ‘I’ve seen the Lord’ and subsequently He appeared in a locked room: supernaturally. The disciple’s declaration was the same; ‘we’ve seen the Lord’ but when Thomas heard about it he declared unless he saw Jesus’ himself he’d ‘never believe’. Lest we’re too hard on Thomas he wasn’t alone in this declaration, earlier the ten had said the same thing! (Mark 16:11)

Jesus, being a God of second chances, appeared a second time to the disciples but directed his conversation to Thomas, the twin, whose last name means double or twice. Hmmm. Double-minded people waver back and forth between belief and unbelief, and Jesus rebuked all of them for their hard hearts. 

When things are going well it’s easy to believe God’s promises; when trials arrive it’s not as easy. It was necessary for these first believers to stand strong in faith because it was their testimony that would transform many lives as the gospel spread.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” … but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. John 20:29b, 31 

There’s a blessing of joy filled with glory during our times of waiting, believing, and anticipating His Word to be fulfilled and it builds our faith: it’s New Testament Faith. Blind, enduring faith was never meant to be easy but be assured, there’s a blessing in it,

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9 

New Testament believers can trust God with blind faith because it’s Holy Spirit driven as the early believers found out. Peter healed a lame man in this powerful Name of Jesus which caused quite a stir (Acts 3-4) among all the people.

And His name—by faith in His name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. Acts 3:16 

Peter preached faith in His name, assurance that He is who He said He was, and many heard his words,

But many of those who had heard the word believed … Acts 4:4a

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Romans 1:16-17 

The power of the gospel emerges from our heart to our words; let’s share it.