What does it take for you to believe? Do you need to see it to believe it? Do you like to touch and feel things? Do you like the sensory interaction? What will it take for you to believe in Jesus? Are you waiting for a personal interaction? Do you think it is all make believe?
Believing can be challenging at times. It can especially be difficult to believe in something as amazing as the resurrection. After all, who of us has seen someone raised from the dead? We can wrestle with it, try to believe, maybe believe it a little, and continue to have a little doubt.
The disciples who first discovered the empty tomb were troubled. Mary Magdalene and the other women with her thought someone had stolen the body. Peter and John likely thought the same thing. They gathered in fear that they might be the next ones to be hauled to the gallows by the Jewish leadership.
We can experience the same doubts. We may wonder if the story of Jesus’ resurrection is true. We may think it is impossible for anyone to be raised from the dead. We know intellectually that God can do anything, yet we may not have experienced him doing amazing things. Without seeing or experiencing something that only God can do, we can believe a little, but still have doubts.
The disciples had witnessed Jesus perform healings and raising people from the dead. They had heard His teachings and His claims to be the Son of God. They had heard Him state He would die and raise again on the third day. And they still did not understand it until He appeared to them. Even nearly two-thousand years later, knowing the whole story, we can find ourselves having the same doubts, even with eyewitness accounts.
I pray we all believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I pray we wrestle with the knowledge and allow it to sink in. I pray each one of us believe the eyewitness accounts and experience God’s awesome power. Eliminate your doubts. Believe Jesus rose from the dead. Believe the eyewitness accounts.
Luke 24:37-39 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
Marty Pressey 