Doubt

I think we all struggle with doubt at times, but that shouldn’t determine who we are or the outcome of our lives.  I think doubt is a good thing in certain situations; it can help us to dig in and seek out truth.  Doubt can also be very bad, and if not overcome, can cause us to live very negative lives.  What is very important is discernment, and I am talking about the spiritual kind, because having spiritual discernment will help us make sense out of what many times we do not understand and are not sure of. Doubt can turn victory into defeat and cause a contest to be won or lost.  People should have an ‘I can’ determination, if not they will probably wind up defeated in whatever they try to accomplish.

Take praying for example, if you doubt that whatever you are praying for will ever take place, more than likely it won’t.  In James 1:5-8 it says this about asking for wisdom, which every believer needs, but I think this could relate to anything we pray for, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

Doubt, or being unstable, is like going back and forth between believing and not believing and having a divided allegiance.  In Ephesians 4, Paul talks about unity in the church, about truth and the kind of people they should be and how they should receive the truth.  In verse 14 it says this, “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.”  These believers, along with us in our day, need to be committed to truth; the Lord and the Holy Spirit are truth and so is the Word of God.  And just like the Ephesians, we need to know and grasp the truth and not let anyone deceive us and cause doubt to spring up in our minds causing us to be unreliable and unstable in our thinking.

Have you ever been called a doubting Thomas?  Well, for all of you that don’t know where this saying came from, it is found in the Word in John 20:24-31, “Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 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.’  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!’  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.’  And Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’  Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’  And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

Many people have a problem believing that Jesus arose from the dead, or for that matter, that He ever existed at all.  I want to challenge you today, if this is talking about you and you are struggling with believing who Jesus claimed to be, get a Bible that you can understand and start reading, beginning in the book of John.  If you are sincerely seeking to know the truth, ask the Lord to open your heart and your eyes and to remove the veil from your mind so that you will be able to know what the truth is and allow Him, through his Holy Spirit, to reveal it to you.  I don’t think you will have to go too far in the Word and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.  Try it and stop being a doubting Thomas.  May the Lord bless you and have a splendid day!!