Doubts

Luke 24:36-48 

³⁶ While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

³⁷ They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. ³⁸ He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? ³⁹ 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.”

⁴⁰ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. ⁴¹ And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” ⁴² They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³ and he took it and ate it in their presence.

⁴⁴ He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the
Psalms.”

⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.⁴⁶ He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things.

Today, I will address this issue of doubt.                                                                        

And since I am a Biblicist I want to look at this issue from a Biblical point of view.

Generally, doubt is described as a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction

Let me say this to you who have a faith in Jesus Christ:

God has no problems with us doubting.

I love the Bible verse where God tells the prophets that He is willing to reason with you and me. Yeah, to have a good discussion Him and us.

“Come now, and let us reason together,” is how the prophet Isaiah puts it 

In other words:

“OK! People! Tell me your issues! I am big enough to take your questions and doubts..”

Let’s establish some ground rules about doubting God.

There are several things we need to understand up front:

1.

Many people think doubt is the opposite of faith, but it isn’t.                                                                                                 Unbelief is the opposite of faith.                                     

Unbelief refers to a willful refusal to believe, and doubt refers to inner uncertainty.

So, even an agnostic who, at least struggles with faith is not condemned.

 An Agnostic believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

An agnostic is given a right by God to, at least trying to be honest.

And I believe that when a such a person honestly struggles to find out about God’s claims he or she will be satisfied with the evidences that are there about Truth.

It is never our doubts that judges us.

It is our disbelief (rejection) that judges us separates us from God.

An individual who firmly asserts his or her violent aggression toward God and makes God only to another slave of his or her imagination by absolutely rejecting God is what God calls a fool.

Remember “The fool says in his heart; “There is no God!”

God is OK with you and me when we doubt and pretty much say: “Forget my unbelief!”

2.                                                                                                               Some advocate that doubt is unforgivable, but it isn’t. God doesn’t condemn us when we question him. Both Job and David repeatedly questioned God, but they were not condemned. God is big enough to handle all our doubts and all our questions.

I would also add, as long as we are willing to reach the evidences for His existence.

3                                                                                                                       Still others think struggling with God means we lack faith, but that’s not true.

Struggling with God is rather a sure sign that we truly have faith. If we never struggle, our faith will never grow.

Listen to what John said in 1 John 3:20 -22 

“If our hearts condemn us, G od is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God”

You see, it is our hearts that condemn us

Sometimes our heart just keep condemning us as Christians.

·        We doubt our salvation.

·        We doubt that God heard our prayers.

·        We doubt God’s love when we have messed it up. Etc. Etc.

Emotions comes from the hearts and takes over with doubts

– The way I have been trained has taught my attitude and my personal beliefs so that the hearts responses with my selfish learnt ways.

Feelings, sentiments, passions, excitements, imaginations.

All those come from the seat of my emotional throne – the heart.

And, many times they are the real threat to growth to Christian maturity.

When we exchange God’s Truth with how we perceive things from our self-learned self-created universe, often the result is that God says loses out.

We make Truth become equal with our emotions, impressions.

Yes, we make our emotional stability become the norm of our thinking.

Sometimes we just must train our mind become the ruler of our rather than letting emotions run our lives.

Isn’t that what is creating anxieties?

Most of the times anxious impressions are not related to thinking the right way?

How many times don’t we hear from our doctors that the heart attack you just think you have is rather an experience of our imagination playing with your emotions.

The same thing goes with our relationship with God.

Our hearts (emotions) struggle with the Truth that God tells us.

Again; ^“if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.”

What God says is that He is Sovereign, and the Greater than all our small inclinations and dispositions and He knows where we should put our minds.

Make a distinguish between God’s Truth and your self- learned pseudo truth.

Colossians 3: 10                                                                                              “Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds Set you minds  on on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.…”

God knows also that we are made of dust and easily lose sight of things now and then, so He tells us that we, when issues

Therefore, strive for the things above,

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.…”

Doubts arise between when you and I start arguing with God’s Heavenly Truth

Let’s take an example

Let’s take the issue about your Salvation.

When you doubt about your God-given Salvation by faith (which we do now and then.)

What do you do then?

If you have done something wrong and you don’t feel that you deserve to be called a child of God.

In other words; you have a battle of the mind.

What are you to do?

You take your God-given Bible-the very Word of God and turn to 1 John 5: 13 we you will read these words of God though Saint John.

 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

The, you ask yourself: Who should I believe?

Should I believe my self-taught riddle that I just lost my God-given Salvation, or should I simply believe God’s promise.

God or me?

Doohh!

Just think of it. That that Bible verse tells us that when we believe – trust in Jesus Christ as Savior we are His.

Again Folks! God said it – I believe it. It is settled and my doubt flis away!

You are not the one doing the work for your salvation.

You see, the work has already been done.

In the sufferings of Jesus.

In His death on the Cross of

And through Jesus conquering death through the Resurrection.

He took our sins on Himself so that you and I don’t have to carry it and be judged for it.

You see, God’s Salvation has nothing to do with you.

Or what you think or what your emotions are.

It is not revealed by your intellect or intuition or self-understanding.

It is simple God’s action separated from your and my imagination!

Again!

“For God so loved the world that HE gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Let’s take an illustration:                                                                                                                                         

You go to Elmer’s or Meier’s to buy a can of beans.

We trust it there are bean in that can.

We know that humans have put that label there and we trust that human.

Made by men.

BUT then why don’t we trust God the more?

Personally, I think that Jesus’ Disciples should have believed little more than they did.

Here is an lesson from the life of John, the Baptist when he sitting in prison waiting to be executed by Herod.

Sure we can understand him why he is doubting.

He has a lot on his mind and really wonder about Jesus being the Messiah.

Before he was so cotton-picken sure of Jesus, but now in his situation he doubts.

Matthew 11:7

“When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”                                                                                                   Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 

The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble because of me.” As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind?

Jesus did not condemn poor John the Baptist for doubting, but He tells his John’s disciples.

They experienced saw it with their own eyes

Not disciplining our minds to trust in God’s word first and then always will creates havoc for us.

James 1: 6                                                                                                                                                                                                       Let him ask in faith, without doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.”

James 1:5-8 encourages those who lack wisdom to let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

God cannot lie promises Titus 2:1

Faith is the name of the Game.

Do we believe God?

Listen to Romans 10: 17

“Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”

Do we really believe that God is there and that He does not lie?

Faith and trust is something that happens all the time in life. Even the materialist and the rationalist and the atheist ultimately place his or her trust in certain issues that require faith.

Even to say that truth is only intelligible through reason is itself a statement of faith. Denying the existence of God is as much a leap of faith as asserting it.

“Most of the things we most deeply believe in — for example, human rights and human equality — are never empirically provable.”

So, God has provided a very pleasant life-style that works well for every one of us.

A life of faith.

A life in simply trusting, instead of always doubting Jesus.

And the way we Christians grow is to read and study the Bible more and carefully consider what it can do to our Christian maturity.

“Trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.”