“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” {John 20:24-25}
So many of us are like Thomas, even though of course we wouldn’t want to be accused of being like him, we still do it all the time – we doubt. We doubt the Holy Spirit when He deals with us. We doubt the word of God when it’s spoken to us or when we read it, and we are always second guessing ourselves in our relationship with the Lord. The problem with unbelief especially when it comes to believing God’s love for us, is that we become a great big target for the enemy to torment. The minute we need something or we want something from the Lord and we want to ask Him about something we desire, the enemy can easily stop us with just a simple thought – doubt. It’s so powerful that it can keep us from receiving great things from the Lord.
A prime example of losing out on God’s blessings were the children of Israel in the wilderness. There they were, a few feet away from the Promised Land, Canaan. The great big wonderful land God had promised for them to possess when they were only 11 days after exiting Egypt. But because of doubt they forfeited it. The great Promised Land wasn’t retrieved again until 40 years later. Think about that: 11 days versus 40 years! That’s a lot of difference! That brought about a lot of misery too in the process. Thousands of them died with plague after plague in the wilderness because of their unbelief and consequently, frequent murmurings. Those same people could already have been in the Promised Land enjoying the good of the land, if they just listened to Joshua and Caleb and believed God. But instead they ended up getting killed in the wilderness, simply because they doubted. Doubted God’s ability to see them through, and doubted His love for them by not placing themselves in the hands of the living and great powerful God.
The great big question now is: How do you deal with doubts? How does one deal with these tormenting thoughts of doubt that the enemy has plagued us with? Because the truth is, doubting is very real in our society today. We cannot run away from this. The enemy is out there casting doubts all over the world regarding God’s great love upon us. He always has us doubting it. This is one of his great big weapons to keep us away from God – doubt. The answer, of course, is in talking to the Lord about it. There is no other way around it. We have to come to Him, confess our sin of doubt to Him and repent from it, and ask for Him to give us faith in return.
Do you know that talking to God will give us faith? Jesus Christ is the great faith giver. If we don’t talk to Him and ask Him for it, well then we have no chance of having an abundance of it. Left on our own we don’t have enough willpower to believe and to resist Satan of his weapon of doubt. The Bible states, Jesus Christ is the author and the finisher of our faith.
“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” {Hebrews 12:2}
Another scripture tells us that faith comes by hearing of the word of God:
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. {Romans 10:17}
A lot of us think that we must go to church, or pop a CD in our car or read the Bible to hear the word of God. We forget that talking to God and seeking after Him is seeking and finding the Word of God as well. After all, the Word of God who was made flesh is Jesus Christ. So spending time with Him will not only bring us closer to God, it will also increase our faith in Him.
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” {John 1:14}
Another way faith comes is through fasting. There was a scene in the New Testament of a man who brought his lunatic son to the disciples to be delivered of a devil. The disciples couldn’t cast the devil out. Then came Jesus walking towards them and learned about the problem. The father turned to Jesus and pleaded to the Lord and said to Him, “If you can do anything, please have compassion upon us and help us!” Already, the unbelief coming through his words: if. He really wasn’t sure if the Lord could do anything. The Lord turned to him and told him,
“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” {Mark 9:23}
The thing is, the Lord can do anything, but are we going to believe Him?
The Lord of course cast the devil out of the son and healed him. Later the disciples talked to the Lord about their not being able to cast the devil out, because in their other experiences they were able to. But this time they couldn’t. Notice though, how the disciples talked to Him about this. They didn’t pretend this issue away. They boldly confronted Him with it. This is how the Lord wants us to be with Him all the time – open and honest with Him. He wants us to always be able to talk to Him about anything because He loves us so much. The Lord told them,
“Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” {Matthew 17:20-21}
There you go – the problem: unbelief. The solution for casting devils out and having more faith to cast them out: prayer and fasting. It’s really simple: spending more time with the Lord brings faith.
Don’t let the enemy and doubts get you down. Don’t let unbelief have the say in your day and steal God’s promises away from your life. Let the Lord lift you up by spending more time with Him. He loves us so much and His desire is for us to be more than conquerors. Don’t let doubts keep you away from your blessings and from being victorious and entering your Promised Land. Remember: have faith in His love for you, moment by moment. Forget the past. If you’ve repented of your sins already and do love the Lord, don’t let Satan steal your confidence in God’s love for you. Keep believing and keep trusting in His love because the Lord who loves us so much is faithful. He will never ever stop loving us and will come through for us if we continue to believe in Him and talk to Him.
“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” {Colossians 2:8}
“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” {Hebrews 3:12}
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” {Hebrews 11:6}
“My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” {Psalm 73:26}
Prayer
Father I thank You that there is nothing that can ever separate us from Your love. If our hearts are set on You and are trusting You fully to see us through, there is nothing that will be impossible for us. Father, I thank You Savior that Your grace is sufficient for us. You will never ever leave us nor forsake us. Your love is true for us until the end. I thank You ever so much Lord Jesus for Your goodness and Your faithfulness. Thank You, Father.
Lord, we live in an hour where the love of many has waxed cold. It is of course the work of the enemy because of doubts and unbelief he has placed in people’s hearts of who You are and how great and awesome You are. He has turned our eyes upon our own selves and on our own abilities instead of looking to You, the author and the finisher of our faith, who speaks things into existence and makes all things possible. Lord Jesus, we need You in this hour to save us from unbelief! Save us Lord. We need to believe in You so that we can overcome in this life and live a victorious life over our sins and over the desire of the enemy against our soul. So many things try to come against us in our relationship with You but Father You are faithful. You will never leave us. Please Jesus help us to have faith in You. Help us to come to You and spend more time with You, Lord, so that our faith in You will increase more and more. I ask all these things in Your most wonderful and powerful and precious name, Jesus. Thank You, Father. Amen.
