No Way!!!!

                                  

    Thomas was overwrought.  He couldn't believe what his fellow disciples were telling him.  The Teacher was alive?!! There was no way this could be true.  They were just messing with him, again.  His friends were always teasing him...so much that he never believed anything they said.  They had duped him many times...but this?  This was too much.  He wasn't going to fall for this one.  How cruel could they be?  This was the worst prank his so-called 'brothers' could pull.
     "I'm not going to believe, unless I can see the nail holes in His Hands and put my finger in the holes, and put my hand in His Side!!", he cried.  If he wasn't so scared of the Pharisees and the Romans, he would leave this bunch.
     Thomas had to listen to this story all week long.  He was tired of the game.  Enough was enough.  They were all together, locked up in a room.  Suddenly, the room began to get brighter, and there was Someone else there!!  It couldn't be!  Is it?  It was!!  It was Jesus!!  The brothers weren't lying!!  He WAS ALIVE!   He was looking at him...with a smile....
     "Thomas, look at the holes in my hand.  Put your finger in them!  Put your hand in this hole in my side!  Don't doubt...but believe!"
     How did He know...?  Oh yeah.  Thomas was so ashamed and embarrassed.  He fell at Jesus' feet.  "My LORD and my God."
     "Thomas, you believe because you have seen.  Blessed are those that do not see, yet believe."

     What is faith?  According to Hebrews 11:1, "Faith is the substance of all things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  Faith always has an element of doubt in it.  It is not real faith, if you just believe because someone tells you to.  It has to be a personal thing.  Thomas had to learn on his own that Jesus was really alive.  Just like us.  We have to learn on a personal level that Jesus really did die on that cross for ME.  Thomas did have an extra advantage...he was allowed to SEE Jesus to help him believe.  That's why Jesus said that we are blessed...if we don't see, but we believe nonetheless.
     God has a plan for your life.  Do you think that's true...or do you think that that applies to other people?  Carlton Pearson said, "Sometimes God doesn't tell us His plan, because we wouldn't believe Him anyway."  We are a skeptical people...it is easier to be suspicious than to trust in something we can't see. 
     Our Heavenly Father knows that.  That's why He gives us signs every day of His Love for us.  But we have to look for the signs.  We can get so caught up in our daily lives that we miss them.  Yet they are there.
     Keep your eyes of faith open. See...and believe!