That means that our prayer life ought not to be offset by our private life. Our praise ought not to be offset by profanity and pornography. Our love for Jesus should not be outweighed by our thirst for Jack Daniels, or Jim Beam or Johnny Walker Red or Black. Our walk should match our talk. Our love for Christ should not be obscured by our addiction to crack cocaine. Our intimacy with Christ in the spirit cannot go alongside of our intimacy with someone who is not our spouse in an act of sexual infidelity. Our times of worship should not be followed by prolonged times of worry.

Christ's command to us to love and serve one another should not be replaced by a selfish love that serves no one other than ourselves. Our walk should match our talk, and when that does not happen our testimony is weakened to the point that no one listens to what we say because they are distracted by how we live. Maybe Thomas did not believe Peter and the others because their walk did not match their talk.

Whatever the reason was for Thomas' doubt; he got what he wanted just one week later. The Bible says that Jesus showed up again in the room where the disciples were gathered together. This time he speaks directly to Thomas and tells him to come and place his fingers in the wounds on his body. I can almost hear the Master talking to his disbelieving disciple.

Come here Thomas; I have come back just for you.
Come here Thomas; and let all of your doubts be settled.
Come here Thomas; and place your fingers in the wounds left by the spikes.
Come here Thomas; and touch where the Roman spear pierced my side.
Come here Thomas.
Come here and see what you missed the first time I came.
Come here and know for sure that I am risen from the dead.
Come here Thomas; and do not doubt any longer.
Come here Thomas.

There is one more thing to be said from this text. Jesus said to Thomas, "You have believed because you have seen. Blessed are those who will not be able to see but will still be willing to believe." Thomas joined the other disciples in believing in the resurrection of Jesus as a result of physically seeing him and touching him and hearing his voice after he was raised from the dead. They were there when Christ preached on the mountainsides of Galilee. They were there when Jesus healed as he traveled the roads of Judea. They were there in that upper room when Jesus ate with them and instituted the Lord's Supper on the night before he died. They were also there in that same upper room when Jesus appeared to them in the hours and days following his resurrection from the dead. It was easier for them to believe, because they were able to see the whole thing unfold before their very eyes.

The real issue surrounding Easter is not what Thomas did or did not believe; the real issue for today is whether or not you and I believe this same story. Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe that he lived on this earth as an extension of the very presence of God himself? Do you believe that when he died on that cross that all of your sins were forgiven if you just put your faith in him? Do you believe that when God raised him from the dead that he also swung open the gates of the grave and gave the promise of eternal life to all that call upon the name of Jesus?