Using Life As An Investment of Faith
After eight days His
disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having
been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then He said
to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your
hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” Thomas
answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Because you
have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet
believed.”
John 20:26-29
We often say, “If I had lived in Jesus’ day, believing would have been easy! If
I had opportunity to see what they saw, placing faith in Jesus as the Christ
would have been easy!” You can decide for yourself, but speaking for me, I am
glad I did not live then. I do not conclude it would have been easier to have
faith in Jesus when he was alive.
“Why would you conclude that?” For several reasons, I hold that conclusion. (1)
Many were ruled by incorrect motives. Read Matthew 13:10-16; Matthew 15:1-14;
John 6:26-33; and John 9:35-39. I fear I might have been one who did not wish to
understand, or who was inconsistent, or who focused on physical needs rather
than the spiritual meaning, or who experienced the power but did not know who
Jesus was. (2) There were only about 120 (Acts 1:15) who remained committed to
Jesus immediately after Jesus’ death. Who am I to think I would be one of those?
Jesus healed a lot more the 120 people! (3) What God sent Jesus to do was
radically different than most Jewish people expected! Not even the prophets and
the angels understood what God was doing. They were curious in the extreme about
God’s actions (1 Peter 1:12). (4) Many Christians died in that first 100 years
for no reason other than faith in Jesus Christ! Are we willing to give our blood
to retain our faith in Jesus Christ? (Today’s Christians find differences in
congregations to be insurmountable obstacles—what a comparison!) I am not so
certain that I would embrace faith in the resurrected Jesus in their
circumstances!
A faith that challenged always existed as the foundation that caused people to
follow God. God obviously was working toward His solution to sin in Genesis 12:3
when He promised Abraham his descendants would bring a blessing to all nations.
From the time of that promise to Jesus’ coming was approximately 2000 years.
When Jesus’ ministry began, neither Jesus nor his ministry was at all what the
Jewish people anticipated. Not even the apostle Peter understood what God was
doing long after Jesus’ resurrection—carefully read Acts 10:9-20, 29, 34-36.
There has never been a time when it was easy to invest life in Jesus Christ
through faith in God’s work through him.
Dare to trust in Jesus by being “one who has not seen,” but one who believes in
God’s work in Jesus Christ. Never stop believing in what God did and continues
to do in Jesus! Never trust yourself! Always trust in what God did in Jesus!
Serve Jesus because you trust God. Dare to be who you are because you trust who
Jesus is! Always view life as an investment because your life is an
investment—whether you view it that way or not!
David Chadwell
West-Ark Church of Christ, Fort Smith, AR
Bulletin Article, 16 October 2008
Link to other
Writings of David Chadwell