So the other disciples told him [Thomas], “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
TO PONDER
Another pastor pointed out to me this week something I had never noticed before. In this story from John's gospel, we encounter the doubt of Thomas and from it we get the name or phrase 'Doubting Thomas'. But stop and think about it for a moment, the other disciples who "saw the Lord" as the verse for the day reminds us are still meeting behind locked doors in fear eight days later when Jesus appears a second time, this time with Thomas in the room.
Jesus told them on his first appearance that he was sending them, "as the father has sent me, so I am sending you". And yet, the disciples didn't go anywhere. They had heard the testimony of the women who went to the empty tomb that first Easter morning, they had now seen the risen Jesus appear among them and prove his identity via the wounds in his hands and sides and they are still so full of fear that they meet in secret behind closed doors.
The question I have is who are the real doubters. Is it us? Are we the disciples who know Jesus has risen, who know that he has sent us into the world with a mission to introduce others to him, who know we have been sent to love and serve others just as Jesus came to love and serve us, and yet still only express our faith behind locked doors in our Christian enclaves on Sunday morning?
Sometimes, faith is hard. Thomas wanted to see what the others had seen, he did not just take their word for it. But we have no excuse, we have seen what God has done, we have the testimony of the apostles, the gospel accounts of Jesus, and we have encountered the risen Jesus in our own lives as he has called us to faith through the Word and the Spirit. But hard doesn't mean we simply don't do it. Hard means we need to exercise faith, to trust that when Jesus sends us, he sends us as he did those first disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit so that we might have the capacity to see to the things he is sending us to do. That's how we show faith.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, Thank you that you have made yourself and your love and mercy known to me in so many ways. Please help me to step out in faith wherever you call me to go, trusting that where ever you send me, you will be wit me. Amen
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle
For we live by faith, not by sight.
TO PONDER
When I saw this text that I was to use for today’s reflection, I thought Pastor Mat was playing a joke on me. All through the week, we had Bible passages about light and seeing, and then at the end of the week, we find out it is not about seeing, but about faith. Then I realised I couldn’t blame Mat, but the Holy Spirit who guided Mat to this passage. OK, this is therefore important and I had better work out the conundrum.
Remember back to Thursday’s discussion, where we looked at seeing a reflection in a dirty, broken mirror. The way forward with God is essentially unknown to us and we may get only small glimpses of where God is leading us. So we are following God’s leading by faith that He is all that Jesus said that He is.
If we had a clear vision of the life ahead of us, either one of two things would happen. We could know what to expect at every moment, be able to prepare for it and get to the end successfully, priding ourselves in what we had achieved. The more likely scenario is that we would see things that scare us to paralysis and we wouldn’t want to go forward. The advantage of going ahead in faith with the Holy Spirit beside us, is that we will get the training and guidance to face everything we meet along the way, and God will get the glory for all that He does.
Yes, of course we need God’s illumination, but that is really about the relationship He wants to have with us. It is also about the illumination of all that He has already done to enable us to have that close relationship with Him. But the way forward, at each step is based on His assurance that He is with us all the time to guide us along the way.
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank You for the glimpses of Heaven You have given us so that we can be assured that this is the home we are headed to. Meanwhile, on our way there, please help us to keep trusting your promises to be with us as we face the challenges of each day. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
TO PONDER
Jesus made the comment in our text after He told the parable of the Sower (where the farmer scattered seeds on different types of ground and only got a good harvest from one of the fields). The disciples came to Jesus for Him to explain the parable. But before He explained the parable, Jesus also explained why He used parables.
Parables were just one of the ways Jesus used to get His message across to people. Jesus understood human nature very well, so He used methods of communication to suit His audience. To people who wanted to learn, He spoke plainly. But there were people who were indifferent to Jesus’s message and there were those who wanted to find fault with Him, so they were not really interested in understanding the truths Jesus wanted to share.
The advantage of parables was that the story was easy to understand and relate to, and people had a high chance of remembering the story. And while remembering the story in the parable, the Holy Spirit could work to bring understanding of the important truths behind the parable – even well after the initial hearing of the parable.
Jesus also used exaggeration (or hyperbole) to get His point across. If we hear what we expect to hear, it can easily “go in one ear and out the other” (an expression often heard in my youth). But if we hear something that doesn’t seem quite correct, we may stop and think about it, and again give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to get an important truth past our defences.
By the way, Jesus didn’t only teach through preaching, He also lived out His message in the way He related to people through His love, care and healing.
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank You for all the ways you use to bring Your message to us, and thank You for interrupting us from our lethargy for us to listen to what you have to say to us. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
TO PONDER
I must admit that I get a bit frustrated with the translation of this passage. When I look into a modern mirror, I get a very clear reflection of an object in the mirror, just as clear as looking directly at the object. What we are missing here is that the mirrors of Paul’s day were just polished metal. Although freshly polished silver gives a good reflection, the silver very quickly tarnishes and the reflection becomes dulled. In addition, if the metal of the mirror wasn’t perfectly flat, then the reflection would be distorted. A better description (although not a proper translation) would be looking into a dirty, broken modern‑day mirror.
For our current lives on this earth, we are limited in our understanding of God and His purposes for us. God has given us sufficient knowledge and understanding (evidence) that He is the all‑powerful God who created time and space and us. He has also, through His Son Jesus, told us everything we need to know to live as His children in a close relationship with Him. But compared to knowing all there is about God and how He is working in our lives, we have limit knowledge. However, on the other side of the grave, we will get to know Father, Son and Holy Spirit fully.
Our God is about relationship with us. Yes, we need knowledge to help us grow in that relationship, but we are not to let the desire for greater knowledge to take the place of the desire to grow in knowing our God in a personal relationship and surrendering our lives into His love for us.
PRAYER: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thank You that Your goal and plan for my life is an intimate relationship with You. Thank You for revealing more than enough information about Yourself that I can trust all Your promises and surrender my life into Your hands. Thank You for welcoming me back when I regularly reject Your plans and try to go my own way. Amen.
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
TO PONDER
Today’s Bible text can raise many questions for us, such as: Why did Jesus’s first touching of the blind man’s eyes not restore full sight? What was the purpose of the two‑stage miracle? What do we understand by the man seeing people as trees walking around? Had he always been blind – so that he had never seen either trees or people, or had he been born with sight and then become blind later in life? Why did the people who brought the blind man to Jesus only ask for Jesus to touch the blind man, rather than asking for healing of his sight?
Mark doesn’t answer any of these questions, just states the facts. But I wanted answers. So I spent a lot of time searching on the internet for sermons and commentaries that would answer my questions. And, I didn’t find any answers.
We believe the Bible is inspired by God, so what God wants us to know He made sure was included in what was written in the bible. So I really have to accept that God wasn’t going to answer any of these specific questions (and I did pray that He would give me answers to share with you).
So, what lessons do we learn? One is that God treats us as individuals, addressing our individual needs. Since Jesus performed this miracle away from the crowds, the main people impacted were the blind man and his friends, So we can assume that the method of the miracle (spit and touch) and the two stages were meaningful to this group of people.
Another lesson is that our path to a relationship with Jesus is also unique to us. The method God used to reveal Himself to me is very unlikely the way He revealed Himself to you.
And, I think the main lesson is that God always responds when we come to Him or bring our friends to Him and He will deal with the issues that He knows best need to be dealt with. And there will always be further issues to be dealt with by our loving Heavenly Father. Our transformation into the person God wants us to be is an ongoing process, not a one‑off event.
PRAYER: Loving Heavenly Father, Thank You that You know us inside out and You know what things in our lives need to be dealt with. And thank You for Your Holy Spirit working in my life to bring about these changes. Thank You too that I can bring my friends and family to You for You to touch their lives too. Amen.
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
TO PONDER
Back a few decades ago I was noticing that there were times when I was having trouble seeing close things clearly, but I was too vain to consider getting my eyes tested. I was getting by OK. Then one evening I was driving alone to a location I was not familiar with. This was before satellite navigation was available and we used to navigate while driving with a book called a street directory held open on the steering wheel (or by a passenger if there was one in the car). On this occasion I got lost and was trying to work out where I was. This involved getting out of the car and reading street signs (when you could find them) and then using the index to find the page in the directory that had a street by that name. Well, this night, I just could not read the street directory with the light available in the car. So I had to get out of the car again and hold the directory in the headlights of the car to be able to read it. I eventually found my way to where I wanted to go. And next day I made an appointment with an optometrist.
You could say that I had all the information I needed in the street directory, but without the correct illumination I just couldn’t get access to this information. And without access to the information, I didn’t have the guidance I needed to go forward on my journey.
In our passage, Jesus is saying that He is both the illumination and the information we need to live lives as God intended us to live. In Jesus’s day, part of the information was already available in the Old Testament, but Jesus provided illumination in how to understand the information. The religious leaders of the day had got a lot of their understanding wrong and so kept challenging Jesus.
But Jesus had a whole lot more teaching to provide and this is captured for us in the New Testament. Thank God for giving us His Holy Spirit to help us see the things God wants us to see.
Just one thought. A bright light does nothing for us if there is nothing for it to illuminate. If we don’t open our bibles or spend time in conversation with God or spend time with other Christians, God may be limited in how He can enlighten us to his plans and purpose for us. But thankfully, He never gives up on us.
PRAYER: Patient Heavenly Father, thank You for all the ways You guide us in living the lives You planned for us. Thank You for Your word in the bible and for the illumination Your Holy Spirit provides to us to understand what has been written. Thank You that Your Spirit then guides us in living as Your dearly loved children. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
TO PONDER
As some of you know, I have an engineering background. I need to be able to see and touch what I am working on. However, when it comes to abstract thinking, I really struggle. So, when it comes to theological subjects, I need to relate the abstract to experiences in my life. When I think of love, I have to relate it to my own experiences of being loved and of expressing love to others. In a similar way, we understand the love of God for us through the things Jesus did as much as through the things he said. All through the Bible, we see God in action, as well as providing direction for our lives. Jesus provided much of His teaching through parables which related directly to the experiences of Jesus’s hearers.
One possible unintended consequence of needing to understand God in terms of things we already know is that we cut God down to size so that we can comprehend him. We tend to limit what we expect God can do to what humans are able to do, or what we see happen in nature. And when it comes to Jesus, it is tempting to limit our thinking of him to being just an itinerant prophet, ex‑carpenter, trudging the roads of Palestine, providing good advice on how to live good moral lives.
Our text reminds us that God’s glory was seen in Jesus. God’s love for us was fully expressed in Jesus; God’s compassion and mercy for us was fully lived out in Jesus; God’s plans for us were fully explained by Jesus and achieved in Jesus. If we are going to follow this Jesus and surrender our lives to Him, we need to be sure we following the real thing. We are helped in this by comprehending the glory of this God revealed through Jesus.
In the Gospel of John, right at the beginning, we have John declaring: “In the beginning was the Word (meaning Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The God we believe in is the God who created the universe containing billions of billions of stars, and life on earth in all its complexity. Our minds cannot comprehend the enormity of what God has done. And this God is the one who wants to bring blessings into our lives, and he has done this through the revelation (light) brought to us through His son Jesus.
Both Paul and the apostle John had been given visions of Jesus in heavenly glory, and this greatly expanded their understanding of who Jesus was, what he had done, and what He was still doing. They saw that God has a detailed plan for this planet and the people living in, and he is working out his plan through the lives of people. And He is not limited in what He can do.
So, what Paul is saying in this passage is that the God who created time and space and light has the knowledge, power and wisdom to work in our lives for us to understand (be enlightened about) reality from God’s point of view, instead of our earth‑bound view.
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, we come to you for you to enlighten us as to who you are in all your glory. Please help us to grow in seeing the light of understanding you are shining on us. Amen
Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping
The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
TO PONDER
Holy Saturday, as it is sometimes called, has always been a strange part of the Easter weekend for me. We do church on Good Friday and remember Jesus suffering and death. We then do church again on Easter Sunday and celebrate Jesus' resurrection and his victory over sin and death for us. But what do you do with Saturday?
For the Israelites, and for Jews today, Saturday is the Sabbath day, a day of rest. Between sunset on Friday and sunset on Saturday, no work was to be done at all. In fact, there were, and still are are, very strict rules about what a Jewish person can and cannot do on the Sabbath. These women would have worked and prepared all that they needed to properly anoint Jesus' body until sundown on Friday evening but then there was nothing they could do for the next 24 hours but rest and reflect on all that had just happened.
My wife and I were just reflecting recently that although we are glad that we no longer live under pandemic lockdown restrictions, there was something about the pace of life under those conditions that we miss. There is something important about taking time to slow down and contemplate the things that really matter. You might think that anointing someone's dead body before the stench of decay starts to set in might be an important task to get done as soon as possible, but these women rested because that is the pattern God had established for them and obeying the will and commands of God was their top priority.
I know that in all the Easter weekend shop closures that Easter Saturday is one chance to get out and 'get stuff done'. But can I encourage you today to just rest. Take this one day to sit and consider the things that really matter, to be with the people God has placed in your life who love you and care for you. Enjoy this day of the Easter weekend where 'nothing happens' and rest in God's presence. After all, that is the reason he gave the Sabbath in the first place.
PRAYER: Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe. You have called us to cease from striving, to step away from burdens, and to enter Your holy rest—not as a law, but as a gift. Teach us to trust that the world does not turn by our hands, but by Yours. And as we rest, may we look to Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, who gives rest for our souls, now and forever. Amen.
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
TO PONDER
I don't think there is too much I want to say today. I think that it is important that we take time on a day like Good Friday to just sit with the pain and suffering which Jesus endured for our sake.
We have a tendency as New Testament Christians to want to rush towards the Resurrection of Easter Sunday. In fact many modern evangelical churches do not even hold services on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday any more. But it is important for us to remember that the suffering and death of Jesus is what paid the price for our sin. It was our rebellion against God which nailed Jesus to the cross. In the words of the song, "In Christ Alone", it was my sin that held him there, until it was accomplished. His dying breath has bought me life, I know that it is finished.
Friday is good because Sunday is coming, but don't rush through today. Take the time to sit and reflect deeply on all that Christ has done for you. Thank of what it means that Jesus, the Son of God died so that you could be free because that deserves some thinking about.
PRAYER: Jesus, there is so much to consider and think about when I stop and read the accounts of your final moments on the cross. The temple curtain was torn and we were granted for the first time since the beginning of creation free access to God the Father. Even though following the Father's will led you through all the pain and suffering of crucifixion, you still placed your life and spirit in the Fathers hands as you took your last breath. Jesus, help me to have that same trust that will put my soul in your hands even when following you takes me into painful and difficult places. I ask that you would help me to know what it is to live in the freedom that your death has won for me each day so that my life might more clearly reflect yours to all the world. Amen.
Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle