2026-08-11 | 🙏 How Can You Believe in God You Cannot See? | Ezekiel 38 Devotional (7-Step QT)
7-Step QT Notes
1. 🙏 Quiet Time
Pause.
Take a deep breath.
Ask God to open your heart so that you may trust him beyond what you can see and bear witness to Jesus Christ through your words and life.
2. 📅 August 11, 2026
Today’s passage reminds us:
Seeing God’s power does not automatically produce saving faith. True faith is God’s gracious gift that enables us to trust Jesus Christ and live in obedience to his Word.
3. ✝️ Ezekiel 38:14-23
God tells Ezekiel to prophesy against Gog, who will lead a mighty northern army against secure Israel. God will bring Gog against his land to display his holiness before the nations. In wrath, he will judge Gog with earthquake, confusion, sword, pestilence, bloodshed, rain, hail, fire, and sulfur. Thus God will reveal his greatness and holiness, and the nations will know that he is the LORD.
4. 📖 Key Verse
So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD (v. 23).
5. 📝 Reflection
One of the statements I heard most often while doing street evangelism was, “If you show me God, I will believe.” People ask how they can believe as Lord a God whom they can neither see nor hear. When I explain that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, some show even stronger unbelief, asking how a man who died two thousand years ago could possibly be God.
However, Scripture does not say that seeing God with our physical eyes will automatically cause us to believe. Rather, it teaches that unholy human beings cannot see the holy God directly and survive. The Israelites actually heard God’s voice and witnessed his presence, and they were terrified. Yet remarkably, even after experiencing such an overwhelming revelation, they worshiped an idol and disobeyed God (see Exodus 20:18-21; 32:1-6; Nehemiah 9:13-18). Therefore, the statement “If you show me God, I will believe” may conceal the pride of placing God beneath human judgment and demands. Witnessing God is not the same as believing in and trusting him.
How, then, do we come to believe in God? How should we share the gospel with someone who demands to see him? Verse 23 of today’s passage says that the nations will know God. However, it is difficult to conclude that this knowledge will necessarily lead them to repentance and saving faith. Through God’s judgment, they will be compelled to acknowledge the LORD’s sovereignty and holiness, but such recognition does not necessarily mean that they will trust and follow him. The saving faith described in Scripture believes in and rests upon Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and such faith expresses itself in a life of obedience to his word.
Beloved brothers and sisters, saving faith is a gift given entirely by God’s grace. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. We are not people who live only by the realities visible before us. We live by trusting God’s word and promises. We do not believe because we have seen God with our physical eyes. We look to him by faith because he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. This is the gracious privilege given to God’s children. May you look to God by faith today and bear witness to Jesus Christ before the world through both your words and your lives.
6. 💬 What does this passage speak to you today?
- Am I asking God to prove himself on my terms before I trust him?
- Is there an area of my life where I acknowledge God’s authority but resist obeying him?
- What situation is making it difficult for me to trust God because I cannot see the outcome?
- Which promise from God’s Word do I need to hold on to today?
- How can my attitude, words, and actions point someone to Jesus Christ this week?
7. 🙏 Prayer
Our heavenly Father, thank You for revealing Yourself through Jesus Christ.
Forgive me for the times I demand visible proof before I trust You.
Help me hold on to Your Word and promises when I cannot see what You are doing.
Give me genuine faith that trusts Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and bears the fruit of obedience.
May my words, choices, love, and integrity bear witness to Jesus before the world.
Amen.
Scriptures
📖 (Ezekiel 38:14-23, ESV).
14 “Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus says the Lord GOD: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not know it? 15 You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army. 16 You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.
17 “Thus says the Lord GOD: Are you he of whom I spoke in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel, who in those days prophesied for years that I would bring you against them? 18 But on that day, the day that Gog shall come against the land of Israel, declares the Lord GOD, my wrath will be roused in my anger. 19 For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare, On that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. 20 The fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field and all creeping things that creep on the ground, and all the people who are on the face of the earth, shall quake at my presence. And the mountains shall be thrown down, and the cliffs shall fall, and every wall shall tumble to the ground. 21 I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Lord GOD. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. 22 With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him, and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur. 23 So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD.
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