John 20:28-29.

“And Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God.’  Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen Me, Thomas, you have believed; blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed."

"My Lord and my God." These are some of the most profound, powerful words in the entirety of the Word.  “My Lord and my God.”  For the first time, a disciple acknowledged not only that Jesus was a great teacher; not only that He was the Son of God; but that He was God Himself, Jehovah of the Old Testament come down into this world.  Those five words contain what is perhaps the single most important truth that has been revealed to the world: the Lord Jesus Christ is God.  Everyone in heaven worships the Lord as God – and so, if we are on the heavenly path – every one of us will reach that moment of recognition where we see the Lord for Who He truly is.  And because we grow closer to the Lord to eternity, and learn more and more to eternity, we can have this moment occur again and again in our lives, with each new moment being a deeper realization that the Lord is God.

But we do not remember Thomas primarily for making this confession of the Lord’s divinity.  We know him today as “doubting Thomas.”  We use the name to refer to people who are too sceptical for their own good, who refuse to believe anything unless they can touch it and see it.  And this, too, is an important part of the story.  Thomas was only able to make his confession when he saw and touched the Lord; but the Lord said, “Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed; blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”  Unlike Thomas, we do not physically see the Lord or touch Him – we are asked to believe in Him without actually having physical proof that He is there, that He has risen, that He is God.

But someone might object, “If I can’t see Him, how can I make myself believe in Him!?”  There is a truth behind this question.  In some sense, we do have to “see” the Lord to truly believe in Him.  

"Give me to drink " How many of us are set upon Lord Jesus Christ slaking our thirst when we ought to be satisfying Him? We should be pouring out now, spending to the limit, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. "ye shall be witnesses unto Me" that means a life of unsullied, uncompromising and unbribed devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, a satisfaction to Him wherever He places us. 

Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to The Lord Jesus Christ . The greatest competitor of devotion to Lord Jesus is service for Him. It is easier to serve than to be drunk to the dregs. The one aim of the call of Lord God is the satisfaction of Lord God, not a call to do something for Him. We are not sent to battle for God, but to be used by God in His battlings. 

But what does it mean to come to the Lord?  How do we approach Him?  And how do we come that internal acknowledgment that mirrors Thomas’s external one – that Jesus Christ is our Lord and our God?  Thomas had spent three years following the Lord.  He had come to know Him intimately.  When the Lord said that He was going to Jerusalem, where they had recently wanted to stone Him, Thomas said to the other disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”  He literally followed wherever Jesus went.  He got to know Him intimately.  And in the same way, if we want to have that internal acknowledgement which is faith, we need to get to know Jesus, to love Jesus, and to follow in Jesus’s footsteps.

How much did Thomas understand when the Lord appeared to them again?  We cannot be sure.  But there was a recognition in that moment when he saw and touched Him that He had conquered death – that all His promises of eternal life, that He would gather them up to Himself, that He had prepared a place for them – all of those hopes which had seemed to die on the cross must have come flooding back, and Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord, and My God!”

We cannot force this revelation to come into our own lives.  We might not even understand why it is so vital that we worship the Lord Jesus Christ, rather than a more general idea of God.  But we can trust the Word when it tells us that doing this and shunning evils as sins will lead us into that internal acknowledgment of truth which is faith.  We can choose to follow the Ten Commandments.  We can choose to learn about the Lord Jesus Christ in His Word, and approach Him in our minds as we pray to Him.  Like Thomas, we will face doubts.  But the Lord promises us that we too will see Him and feel Him – not with our eyes and hands, but in the light of His truth and in the warmth of His love.  And in that moment of recognition we too will be able to say in our hearts, “My Lord and my God!” Shalom. 

Best wishes and blessings from Rev. Dr. Jashobeam Singh 

Administrator of Christ vision Network.