The Eleven Just Don’t Get It!

          or Eleven Days to Christmas 

      12-1=11 That seems simple enough, but I can’t imagine what the 11 disciples thought when a man that they knew for 3 years, Judas, betrayed their beloved Lord (who was put to death) and then killed himself.  They must have wondered at the complexity of it all.  How could it be, that others had seen Jesus alive when they had seen Him die and get buried?  No!  It couldn’t be!

       The eleven still didn’t understand everything Jesus had taught them: that His salvation could only come through His death and resurrection.  They probably thought those speaking of seeing Jesus were crazy, delusional in their grief, or seeing things.  Any way we look at it, there were eleven who lost their belief and spiritual perception.  We do that sometimes, don’t we?

And they (those who saw Jesus) went and told it to the rest (the disciples). Neither did they (the disciples) believe those (who saw Jesus). Afterward He appeared to the Eleven as they reclined (ate together). And He reproached their unbelief (faithlessness) and hardness of heart (destitution of spiritual perception), because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. Mr. 16:13,14

       I know, for myself, that at various times I have lost faith in the Lord: to move in my life, to heal me, change me, be out for my good, stay with me, and love me all the time.  Those thoughts were a product of not really understanding / perceiving Him correctly, who He is, and how He works.  Sometimes we just don’t get it!

Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen Me you have believed. Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed. Jh. 20:29

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hb. 11:1

       It’s funny how we think, ‘You had Jesus there in person, and how could you not believe?’  We know Jesus as historical fact, have proof in the Bible, His words to read, eyewitness accounts in the gospels, yet we still struggle with unbelief and spiritually off perceptions.  Guess we can’t judge, but we can choose to see the real Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, and trust Him completely with our lives.