OUR FATHER WHO BLESSES THOSE WHO BELIEVE HAVING NOT SEEN

The Lord Jesus stayed with the Samaritans for two days as they grappled with the possibility that the awaited Messiah had stopped by their town and many believed. He then departed for His home country of Galilee and the people of Galilee recieved Him gladly because they had been in Jerusalem and they had seen the effect of His ministry in the city.

Whereas while Jesus was with them in their midst, the people of Galilee did not fully grasp the uniqueness and value of the person  of Jesus who they had in their midst but having  having seen Him turning Jerusalem upside down, they were more receptive to His message. Jesus described the change as the phenomenon where a prophet has no honor in his hometown but when the people see the influence he has on other people, they re-evaluate the person whowas always in their midst.

The book of John chapter 4 verses 43 - 54 describes Jesusˋ return home to and the new faith people had in Him such that even the elite of that society were seeking Him out to help them.

43 Now after the two days He departed from there and went to Galilee. 44 For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they also had gone to the feast.

46 So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”

49 The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!”

50 Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.” So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. 51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son lives!”

52 Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed, and his whole household.

54 This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.

The supernatural power that Jesus demonstrated to that family in reviving a son from near death ignited a belief in the Jesus by the nobleman himself and his whole household.

In this case, it took the manifestation of miraculous power to make people believe as Jesus pointed out in verse 48;

 Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”

But there is a special place in Godˋs heart for those who believe in Jesus with no physical proofs except that their own internal witness assures them that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus said it this way in the book of John chapter 20 verse 29 which says;

Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Amen.

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