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Easter Hearts, Week 3, Day 4

by David Joynt on April 25, 2018

Easter Hearts, Week 3, Day 4

 

JOHN 20:24-25 CONTINUED

1 CORINTHIANS 15

 

Thomas wants first-hand experience. Is this a legitimate demand?

 

First-person experience of Jesus is important. But it is not sufficient! We believe in Christ due to the eyewitness accounts of those who saw his deeds, observed his miracles, and who knew directly of his death and Resurrection. The first witnesses are primary and irreplaceable—without them our spiritual encounters with Jesus would have no context.

 

But the final verse in our chapter, John 20:31, indicates we should want first– and second-hand experience. We believe because of testimony, but we experience new life “in his name.” This new life includes being called, addressed, guided, forgiven, encouraged, constrained, and filled with love by Jesus.

 

Do you trust the first witnesses?

 

Do you feel you have “life in his name?”

 

FAMILY TIME—

Thank God for our first witnesses!

 

Tags: encouraged, forgiven, guided, love

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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