As I read today, I could not help to think that Jesus was talking to me. The scriptures began to jump out of the pages as I read more and more and was able to pick out key points to talk about.
Starting in John, chapter 4, Jesus is on his way to Galilee from Judea, on the way he stopped in what sounds like a small town called Samaria. Here Jesus sits at a well and begins talking with a woman, which in those days was unheard of. So shocked, the woman, pretty blatantly, asked Jesus why he was talking to her. Then Jesus replies with a perfect answer in order to open a door for the woman to become a believer. I wonder in my own life, how many opportunities that I have had and let pass because I was too afraid of being rejected or outcasted…
Another key point that really hit me in my reading today was a little later in chapter 4 when Jesus confronted my a man desperate save his son, asks Jesus in what appears to be the man’s last hopes in saving his son. After the man asks Jesus replies “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe.” The man, seemingly in an urgent state basically tells Jesus to hurry up before his kid dies. Jesus then excuses the man assuring him his son will live, which he does. When the man finds this out, the bible says – “So he and all his household believed” Jn 4:53.
Here we see just how gracious and patient Jesus is with the Official. This man had no faith that Jesus was God, yet Jesus decides to heal his son in order for the people in that household would believe. It really made me think about how God is still being patient with me in my walk with Him…
Chapter five is about Jesus healing an “invalid” man. The man is lying next to a pool and Jesus simply asks the man if he would like to be healed. The man replies that no one has ever helped him into the pool, they just go ahead of him. Jesus then, simply, tells the man to get up and walk, so the man does. Here the man never says that he believes in Jesus, but Jesus does this out of the grace of his heart.
John chapter 6 has another gracious act that Jesus performs for a crowd that had started to follow Him. Feeding five thousand people with only five loaves and two small fish. These people were not all believers as almost all left Jesus after hearing Jesus preach on what the Father is giving them, but Jesus still does this out of the grace in His heart of all of them, and continues to do so for all of us today, whether we want to recognize that or not is up to us.