10^th April

 “Then they told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But He replied, “I wont believe it unless I see the nail wounds in His hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hands into the wound in His side.””

Luke 24:30-31

 For eight days Thomas, after hearing the disciples (his friends) tell him that they had seen the risen Jesus, doubted that Jesus was truly alive. Yesterday we heard that two of the disciples (maybe not part of the 12), were walking with Jesus and their eyes could not open to the true identity of Jesus. But they had not heard that Jesus had risen. Yet Thomas, whose own friends had told him that they had seen Jesus alive doubted.

In verse 27 Jesus again approaches the disciples with peace and then calms every doubt Thomas had about Him. In fact, Jesus responds with the very same words Thomas used by confirming that it was really Him, “Put your fingers here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side.” At once Thomas cried out in belief that Jesus in his Lord and God.

It can be said that we are all on a Thomas journey. We have heard of Jesus, we know who He is through the Bible, yet we have had no personal revelation of Jesus in our lives. Needless to say, it so often has to take a personal encounter with Christ to fully recognise who He is for ourselves and to understand His kind, gracious and loving character towards us.

We are even more blessed that we believe without seeing Jesus face to face. However, His character and attributes can so easily be seen not only in creation but also through the kind outworking of Jesus in and through others. If we say we have met the risen King, then we should be doing our best to show Him to others through the way we are living our lives!