Thomas - the Loyal

You probably know Thomas the disciple as Doubting Thomas. Poor guy. One time he says something he shouldn't and it sticks with him. John 20:25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

You may also know Thomas as the twin. If you've ever read the footnotes in your Bible, you might know that Thomas is also called Didymus. The footnote from the NIV version says that Thomas is Aramaic and Didymus is Greek and that both mean twin. I don't know anything about the other twin.

But most of us remember the "Unless I see the nail marks....I will not believe it" verse. Yes, that's the verse we remember. That's a pity because the another verse shows Thomas' loyalty and devotion to Jesus. In John 11, Jesus says that he will go back to Jerusalem to see Lazarus who has died and his sisters. When he says this, the disciples warn Jesus that the authorities wanted to kill Jesus the last time they were there. Jesus says something like "we're going anyway". To which Thomas responded as follows in verse 16: "Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, 'Let us also go, that we may die with him.'”

Isn't that usually the way we remember things, even about ourselves? We have the bad etched into our brains. We can easily recall the stupid thing someone said, or the bad thing that they did, but try to get us to remember the daring, loyal, brave thing and we struggle.

I don't know why we do that but I'm going to try to rid myself of embarrassing or wrong or unflattering things that others have done and cling to the brave, loyal, caring, and kind things. This will be a real challenge for me. But I'm certain that I will be less judgmental and more accepting every time i succeed.

This won't be easy undertaking, Jesus. I'm certain that Thomas' doubt was mimicked by loads of other people. The fact that he said it out loud allowed You the opportunity to demonstrate that You were alive to an otherwise loyal and brave disciple. This gives us permission to doubt and be accepted anyway. It also allowed us to know that we are blessed without seeing You. As you said in John 20 verse 29: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Help me, Jesus, to watch for good to cling to and wash the bad or embarrassing from my recall. Thank You in advance. Amen.

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