In Chapter 20 Thomas, who is labeled doubting Thomas because of the events in this chapter, would not believe unless he personally saw the hands with the nail prints.\u00a0 Jesus said this to Thomas after he got to touch and see the nail prints in Jesus\u2019 hands.\u00a0 Let me stop for a minute; how cool would that have been.\u00a0 Here Thomas gets to see the risen Lord.\u00a0 Thomas gets to talk with and touch the risen Lord.\u00a0 One day for believers we will get that opportunity in glory to see, touch, and talk with our Lord face to face.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is what Jesus said about this encounter in verse 29, \u201cThomas, because, you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.\u201d\u00a0 Happy are the people that believe.\u00a0 God blesses our faith, not blind faith, but faith in John\u2019s inspired historical records of Jesus.\u00a0 These things where not recorded as a keepsake or a scrapbook that became significant later.\u00a0 It was God\u2019s Word written for us in the future so we could and would believe.<\/p>\n
This was not written so we could have belief of understanding, but that we might have life through His name.\u00a0 Life in Jesus, as He said in John\u00a010:10\u00a0\u201cI come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.\u201d\u00a0 This believing was a transformational belief that causes a repenting 180 in your life.\u00a0 When you turn towards God and follow Him you start to experience life, living.\u00a0 Before you believed and received Jesus as Lord and savior you experience life, dead.\u00a0\u00a0 When we stop following and start living life again in the natural man, in our flesh we experience dead life.\u00a0 But when we follow Jesus and walk in His Spirit we experience life, living.\u00a0 There are things I decide not to do because I am alive in Jesus, and there is abundant life away from the cemetery of worldly things.\u00a0 God calls us all to experience real abundant life.<\/p>\n
A religious Jesus or an educational Jesus will not bring us life, we have to experience Jesus.\u00a0 He has more for you and me than we can ever imagine.<\/p>\n
Keep reading\u2026\u00a0Saturday\u00a0and\u00a0Sunday\u00a0we will start in on 1 John chapter one.\u00a0 We will make that chapter cover both days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":1167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":967,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions\/967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}