Jesus Meets Us In Our Doubts – John 20:24-31
“We need to let Christ go beyond the living room, where many want Christ to stay. To invite Christ into the kitchen/dining room and transform our eating; into the family room and transform our relationships; into the recreation room to transform the way we spend our free time; into the study to transform what we read and allow into our minds; into the bedroom to transform the most intimate of spaces; and into all the secret closets, cleansing and healing and freeing.” (Robert Boyd Munger)
“Reason is, in fact, the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more.” (Thomas Merton)
“Now that Christ has come, belief or unbelief is no longer a crisis of the intellect (if it ever was); it is a crisis of the will. When a darkened mind chooses to remain in darkness, no one is to blame but the individual making that choice.” (Charles Swindoll)
“The kind of belief that John is calling us to embrace encompasses more than knowledge. You see, when I say I believe in Jesus Christ, I declare that I trust him, I rely upon him, I have placed my complete confidence in him. Everything I know about this life and whatever occurs after death is dependent on Jesus’ claims about himself and how I respond to this offer of grace. Many listen and learn and nod in agreement, but they do not believe. They have not submitted their hearts – their very will – to the truth of Jesus Christ, his identity as God and his offer of eternal life through faith alone.” (Charles Swindoll)
“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection…” (Philippians 3:10)
“Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9)
“Your real, new self will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him…The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body. In the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” (C.S. Lewis)