{"id":1738,"date":"2019-02-28T19:22:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T19:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2019-02-28T19:22:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T19:22:47","slug":"blog-february-21st-doubts-part-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=1738","title":{"rendered":"Blog February 21st \u201cDoubts – Part Five”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

So here is the fifth and last extract from Selwyn Hughes\u2019 \u201cEvery Day With Jesus\u201d – and from the edition -\u201cStrong at the Broken Places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Selwyn is referring to the passage in the Book of Acts, Chapter 1: 1-11- \u201cBut you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

We spend one last day exploring some of the insights which enable us to overcome doubt and develop our faith.\u00a0 The final principle is this: recognise that if you did not doubt, you could not believe. So don\u2019t be intimidated by your doubts. The Christian writer Robert Brown said this: \u201cYou 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.\u201d Those who doubt most and yet strive to overcome their doubts become some of Jesus\u2019 most remarkable followers. <\/em><\/p>\n

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. \u00a0Perhaps it was the independence that led him to reject the testimony of the other disciples when they said \u201cWe have seen the Lord!\u201d (John 20:25)\u00a0 When Jesus said to him \u201cReach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.\u201d (John 20:27) his doubts vanished and he responded \u201cMy Lord and my God! (John 25: 28) <\/em><\/p>\n

Until then no one had called Jesus \u201cGod\u201d. They had called him \u201cMessiah\u201d, \u201cSon of God\u201d,\u201d Son of the living God\u201d- but not \u201cGod\u201d. Here Thomas the doubter leapt beyond the others and was the first to confess Jesus as God. And Thomas\u2019 faith did not stop there. As we said earlier, he almost certainly took the Gospel to India. The doubter became a doer!<\/em><\/p>\n

Quote of the week:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re not making mistakes, then you\u2019re not doing anything. I\u2019m positive that a doer makes mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Wooden<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019 \u201cEvery Day With Jesus\u201d – and from the edition -\u201cStrong at the Broken Places.\u201d Selwyn is referring to the passage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1741,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions\/1741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}