Bathe Me In Your Light featuring Lucy Stimpson- Maynard from the album “I Look Up To The Heavens” recorded and produced by John Hodgkinson

So here is the fifth and last extract from Selwyn Hughes’ “Every Day With Jesus” – and from the edition -“Strong at the Broken Places.”

Selwyn is referring to the passage in the Book of Acts, Chapter 1: 1-11- “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses.”

We spend one last day exploring some of the insights which enable us to overcome doubt and develop our faith.  The final principle is this: recognise that if you did not doubt, you could not believe. So don’t be intimidated by your doubts. The Christian writer Robert Brown said this: “You call for faith; I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. The more of doubt, the stronger of faith, I say if faith overcomes doubt.” Those who doubt most and yet strive to overcome their doubts become some of Jesus’ most remarkable followers.

We began this section by looking at Thomas the doubter and we end by looking at Thomas the doer. One commentator says that Thomas being a twin (his name Didymus means twin, John 11;16) must have developed an early independence of judgment that made it possible to break with his twin and follow Jesus. This is an assumption but I think it is a valid one.  Perhaps it was the independence that led him to reject the testimony of the other disciples when they said “We have seen the Lord!” (John 20:25)  When Jesus said to him “Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” (John 20:27) his doubts vanished and he responded “My Lord and my God! (John 25: 28)

Until then no one had called Jesus “God”. They had called him “Messiah”, “Son of God”,” Son of the living God”- but not “God”. Here Thomas the doubter leapt beyond the others and was the first to confess Jesus as God. And Thomas’ faith did not stop there. As we said earlier, he almost certainly took the Gospel to India. The doubter became a doer!

Quote of the week:

“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.”

John Wooden