Words of Hope Daily Devotional
The Causes of Doubt
Read: Luke 24:36-45
Why do doubts rise in your minds? (v. 38 NIV)
We are revisiting this story because it contains a question that must be answered if we are to deal honestly and helpfully with doubt: “Why do doubts rise in your minds?”
I think it is a disappointed question. For centuries the people of God had wrestled with the absence, the silence, the inactivity of God. These questions recur again and again in the Old Testament. “Why?” they cried. “How long, O Lord? Where are you? When will you come?” Now God has come in the flesh, and these disciples had confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.
Of course, when he died, their faith had been badly damaged, maybe even killed. But now the risen Christ stood before them, living proof that Jesus was God, that God cares, and that God had acted in Jesus to save his people. This was a time for faith as solid as a rock. Instead, the risen Christ encounters rising doubt. So he asks, “Why?”
He doesn’t ask because he doesn’t know, but because he wants his doubting disciples to confront their own doubt, to think about their doubt, to doubt their doubt. Let’s join them for a few days. Why do doubts rise in our minds? Our answer will help us decide what to do about our doubt.
Over the years, people have answered Jesus’s why question with three words: God, Satan, and you. Doubts arise from an encounter with God, from the machinations of the devil, and from our own selves.
As you pray, ask God to diagnose your doubt and heal it.
Son of Mary
Read: Luke 2:4-19 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary? (Mark 6:3) Sometimes, I send my children the pictures I took of them years ago. My kids roll their eyes and laugh about the way they get random
Son of David, Son of Abraham
Read: 2 Samuel 7:8-16 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matt. 1:1) I once asked a group of students to write letters to their future selves. They composed notes to
Son of Man
Read: Romans 5:12-21 The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45) As I taught a group of Sunday school students about Jesus’s genealogy, one
Alpha and Omega
Read: Revelation 22:1-13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. (v. 13) Have you ever read a story that ended so beautifully, you wanted to go back and reread the
Bright Morning Star
Read: Matthew 28:1-10 I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. (Rev. 22:16) Every once in a while, I awaken early enough to watch the dawn. Almost imperceptibly at first, the sky turns from black
The Word of God
Read: Mark 15:42-47 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. (Rev. 19:13) Sometimes, the most powerful moment in a symphony comes in a beat of