One Thing 5/10/17

Mark 16: 9 [Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. 10 She went and reported to those who had been with Him, while they were mourning and weeping. 11 When they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it.
12 After that, He appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country. 13 They went away and reported it to the others, but they did not believe them either.
14 Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table; and He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen.
Notice that verse 11 says they “refused to believe.” Faith is not something that you feel; it is something that you choose, often in spite of how you feel. Our emotions are not leaders, they are followers. Too often though, because we don’t feel like something is true, we then behave, and talk like it’s not true. There have been many times when I’ve had to choose to believe when nothing in me felt like what I was believing was true. That’s why it is called faith. Remember, we walk by faith not by sight, and feelings are part of the sight realm. In this passage the 11 Apostles, except for Peter had not yet seen the Lord. The women had, and also the 2 on the Emmaus road had encountered the risen Christ, but the others had not. Jesus rebuked them for not believing even before they had personally seen him. It is easy to believe if He physically appears to you, but mature faith believes when there is only non-sight evidence of His presence and activity. Sometimes He wants us to believe with all of our hearts because of the testimony, or words of others. Don’t allow yourself to be robbed by the hardness of heart that needs more proof. John’s gospel tells us that they were locked away in the upper room for fear of He Jews. I would imagine that they were also filed with shame and guilt, for they all, except John, had abandoned Jesus at the Cross. That’s a lot of heavy emotions; fear, guilt and shame. Yet in light of that, Jesus expected them to have childlike faith to believe even though they couldn’t see, or feel yet. I would rather believe too much, even in light of second hand evidence, in the absence of feelings, and get disappointed from time to time, than to believe too little. If the rebuke I hear when I see him face-to-face is that I believed too much,  I am prepared to live with that. My testimony is that when I surrendered my life fully to Jesus many years ago I was suffering from clinical anxiety and depression. I had to learn to live by faith as one who is seated in the Heavenly places in Christ, even though my emotions were hellish. God used those years of intense battle trusting him to defeat the Lions and the Bears, knowing that I would need to believe him in the future when facing Goliaths. Don’t feel guilty if your feelings are going through hellish battles. Maybe this time is filled with more blessing that you ever imagined. It could be that you are taking a graduate level course on faith in the School of Christ. Hear what Jesus said to Thomas and the others 8 days later when He revealed Himself physically to Thomas. John 20: 29 , Jesus *said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

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