A Personal Devotional Journal

I invite you to journey with me. Sometimes we will look at short passages of Scripture and I will give my first thoughts and impressions. Other times, I will just share my thinking about spiritual issues. Always, you are welcome to comment and add your thoughts. Together, we could learn something.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

John 4:46-53 "A Kingdom Compassion"

There was a certain royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum.  When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and pleaded with Him to come down and heal his son, for he was about to die.
 Jesus told him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
 “Sir,” the official said to Him, “come down before my boy dies!”
 “Go,” Jesus told him, “your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and departed.
 While he was still going down, his slaves met him saying that his boy was alive.  He asked them at what time he got better. 
“Yesterday at seven in the morning the fever left him,” they answered.  The father realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” Then he himself believed, along with his whole household.

 Jesus was, of course, the promised Messiah.  His teaching while He walked the earth focused on the Kingdom of God.  Many of the miracles He performed were simply signs to verify who He was.  As Messiah, His desire was that people (His people -the Jews) would see the miracles and listen to His teaching and understand that His Kingdom was spiritual, and that by believing in who He was and accepting His teaching they could enter into a whole new experience and understanding with God because the Kingdom had arrived.  That was His desire.

His experience, however, was that people were not very much interested in a spiritual kingdom.  People enjoyed seeing miracles and wonders and they longed for freedom from bondage to Rome, but they didn't much care for the reality of the actual Kingdom or the actual Messiah.

Although Jesus' statement to the dying boy's father seems a little curt, it is true.  People did not easily believe the actual truth.  Nicodemus who had met with Jesus at night, believed that Jesus was from God, but at first could not accept the truth of the Kingdom.  The Samaritan woman's first response to a spiritual invitation was purely physical.  People wanted signs and wonders, not truth.

 Nevertheless, Jesus had a Kingdom sized compassion.  Even though people were not ready to accept the whole truth, He preached the Good News; He delivered the demonically oppressed; He brought dignity and justice to the downtrodden; He brought freedom to those living in spiritual bondage; He healed the sick.  And as a result, some believed.

We are not so different than Nicodemus or the Samaritan woman or this court official.  We sometimes need convincing.  We need to experience the reality of the Kingdom before we believe it.  Because Jesus still has a Kingdom compassion, He allows us to experience first and believe second.  Once we have experienced the reality of the Kingdom, however, we need to live it out.  We need to preach the Good News, and deliver the demonically oppressed, and give dignity and respect to the poor, and set free those who live in bondage, and heal the sick.  This is what Jesus did, and it is what we are now called and empowered to do.  The world doesn't know it and certainly doesn't understand it, but the world depends on it.  This isn't just about religion, it is about the actual Kingdom of God as Jesus taught it and demonstrated it.  We are His Body.  We are His presence in this world.  We need to live in His Kingdom.


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