John 20:29 AMPC
[29] Jesus said to him, Because you have seen Me, Thomas, do you now believe (trust, have faith)? Blessed and happy and to be envied are those who have never seen Me and yet have believed and adhered to and trusted and relied on Me.
It is very easy to trust your five human senses. God also gave them to us so that we could make rational and logical decisions based on what we could see, hear, taste or feel. However, like all things that are human, there are incomplete expressions or limitations in the things that the human senses can receive, express or understand. We have been given the physical senses in order to process the physical plane of life, but it is clear that there is a spiritual plane of life that the physical senses cannot deal with or understand. In this spiritual plane, the physical senses are limited and not of much use. This was the point that Jesus was trying to make to Thomas in the verse above. It is easy to depend on what is comfortable and convenient, but this will not work for where God wants to take us to.
It is even more poignant that Thomas was a disciple of Jesus, not a stranger or part of the crowd. He had walked with and worked for Jesus for more than three years, yet, when the pressure came, he went back to familiar territory. Thomas relied on what he had always known, because the unusual had happened. For all of us too, we can be exposed to pressure to the point where we give in, give up or go back to our old ways. The old ways are familiar; they do not need us to do anything that will take us out of our comfort zone. Faith can be really hard, as there is nothing to convince anyone of the basis of your conviction and confidence. Faith requires me to hold on to something that I do not yet see, hold or have, yet, my confidence cannot be shaken. Faith sees that which is not visible as tangible and realistic.
From the perspective of Jesus, faith is the path to blessedness. We may not have seen Jesus physically, but we know that He exists and he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. There are a lot of things that I do not have now, and in fact, I may not even have on this side of eternity, yet, my confidence in the ability of God to sort me out is immovable and unshakeable. Things may be happening around me, and even the unpalatable too may come, but being blessed by God means that these things cannot move me away from God, or take my eyes off Him. What is the situation that is so drastic that it is threatening my peace? What is that thing that is so hard that you think God cannot solve? Jesus is asking me to trust Him, His power and His grace. There is nothing impossible for Him to do, and no demand on earth can exhaust the resources of heaven. Faith is the currency of heaven. Can you dare hold on to God for all that is ahead? God's time of favour is here.
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