Only you and FATHER knows where your faith lies before it is tested. I believe 2016 will reveal what level of faith resides in each of us before the year has ended. Where or whom do you place your trust in, FATHER or the world and its leaders with its current systems?
There was one disciple named Thomas who depicts the world’s perspective of “seeing is believing”. Little is specifically mentioned of Thomas in the Gospels until we get to the Gospel of John chapter 14. Jesus spoke:
1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.
2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
Jesus spoke these words after revealing Judas as being the betrayer and He was preparing the disciples for the changes about to take place. Jesus had performed many miracles and had spent three years teaching and training the disciples for their coming ministry yet Thomas spoke:
5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Thomas was having trouble walking in faith and his spiritual eyes could not see what Jesus was showing them. He needed to see to believe but he could only see in the natural. If he fully trusted the Words of Jesus he would have been at peace about The Way. Where or in whom you place your trust determines your level of faith in FATHER. Who has your best interest at heart? Man or FATHER? Making that transition from men and their ways to FATHER and HIS Way is difficult for many as it was clearly the case for Thomas.
In John chapter 20:
24 Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
Thomas was double-minded and relied on his reasoning to determine where is faith was. It is only appropriate that the name Thomas means “twin”. He had “two minds” and was unstable in his ways. When Jesus showed up after the resurrection Thomas was not with the rest of the disciples. Earlier he had been the one who could not see the reality of what Jesus was saying in chapter 14. This is a sure indication that he had little or no faith. Thomas would have to wait another 8 days to see Jesus:
26 And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!”
27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
Jesus had to prove to Thomas that what He spoke to them was true because Thomas walked in fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Thomas would not place his trust in what he could not see in the physical. What about you? Are you impaired by your inability to see the Spiritual? Do you place your trust in your five physical senses rather than FATHER and HIS Word? Jesus spoke:
28 And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Blessed, happy, and well off are those who walk in faith. Very blessed, very happy, and very well off are those in walk in great faith. Now is the time to assess your level of faith and do something about it. Let the Word come alive in you so that you trust in HIS Word rather than men and their systems. Many of those systems may soon disappear. Open your Spiritual eyes or you will fall into a ditch.