Seeing is Believing (Part 3)

September 6, 2020  (Post #48)

(From Journal #4:  March 24, 2006)

As I continue to study “seeing is believing” it is striking at how most forgot the miracles they witnessed, even John the Baptist…the one who baptized Jesus! It seems if anyone would never waver, it would be him.  And yet, while imprisoned he sent his disciples to ask Jesus in Matthew 11:3 …“Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”  Jesus’ response to the disciples was to go back and remind John what he had heard and seen.  In other words, he had witnessed enough to know that Jesus is the Messiah.  This also shows me that all of us can fall into doubt and unbelief if we focus on our problems rather than reflect on what we have seen.  

Jesus rebuked the cities in which most of His miracles had been done because they would not believe what they had seen and repent.  There were those who saw Your miracles and marveled and believed, but it was the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees who saw the same things, yet rejected You and asked for more “signs.”  They had “eyes of darkness.”  Jesus said cities that had been destroyed due to their wickedness would have repented in sackcloth and ashes if they had seen Jesus’ miracles!  The people and cities who saw and yet would not believe are without excuse.  That’s true for us today.

In John 4:46-54, a nobleman whose son was dying went to find Jesus and asked him to come heal his son. He wanted to “see” this.  Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.”  So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.  And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son lives!”  Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better.  And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.  So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.”  And he himself believed, and his whole household. Just like the centurion, this man “believed without seeing.”

I think of the formula “If A=B, and B=C, then A=C.”  If “seeing is believing” then “believing is seeing.”  IS is a verb of being:  God is I AM, therefore, I AM is God!

Lord, help me hold on to this as I battle non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and life in general which is full of hardships.  Help me to…

  • See and believe in the present
  • Remember what I have seen and believed in the past
  • Believe without seeing in the future.