{"id":6777,"date":"2015-08-02T00:05:54","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T07:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6777"},"modified":"2015-08-01T23:35:36","modified_gmt":"2015-08-02T06:35:36","slug":"dazzling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/08\/02\/dazzling\/","title":{"rendered":"Dazzling"},"content":{"rendered":"

He was back in Cana of Galilee, the place where he made the water into wine. Meanwhile in Capernaum, there was a certain official from the king\u2019s court whose son was sick. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and asked that he come down and heal his son, who was on the brink of death. Jesus put him off: \u201cUnless you people are dazzled by a miracle, you refuse to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tBut the court official wouldn\u2019t be put off. \u201cCome down! It\u2019s life or death for my son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tJesus simply replied, \u201cGo home. Your son lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe man believed the bare word Jesus spoke and headed home. On his way back, his servants intercepted him and announced, \u201cYour son lives!\u201d<\/p>\n

\tHe asked them what time he began to get better. They said, \u201cThe fever broke yesterday afternoon at one o\u2019clock.\u201d The father knew that that was the very moment Jesus had said, \u201cYour son lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThat clinched it. Not only he but his entire household believed. This was now the second sign Jesus gave after having come from Judea into Galilee. (John 4:46-54)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

True faith doesn\u2019t require much evidence, since faith is a gift from God, not something we create in ourselves. Herod the Tetrarch was the ruler in Galilee. One of his officials had a sick son, on the brink of death. <\/p>\n

Jesus criticized the people around him for needing miracles in order to believe. John the Baptist had announced Jesus was the Messiah, and Jesus had begun preaching his message, but he hadn\u2019t performed any other miracles. Jesus\u2019 only miracle up until then had been turning water into wine at a wedding. But this official in Herod\u2019s court believed that Jesus\u2019 status as the Messiah was enough. If Jesus was the Messiah, then healing people was part of the package. When Jesus told him his son lived, he believed it and headed back home. Not only did this official believe Jesus was the Messiah, soon the other members of his household did too, when they heard about the miracle. They were dazzled and so they believed. Jesus was right: for some people, a miracle was enough. But for the father, he had believed simply because he knew that the Messiah could take care of his boy. He had believed before any miracle. <\/p>\n

For others, like the religious leadership in Israel, even after Jesus had performed many miracles, it would not be enough for them to believe. Jesus\u2019 promises are certain because of who he is. We don\u2019t need dazzling miracles. If we doubt, the doubt is in ourselves alone.<\/p>\n

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He was back in Cana of Galilee, the place where he made the water into wine. Meanwhile in Capernaum, there was a certain official from the king\u2019s court whose son was sick. When he heard that Jesus had come from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6778,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6777\/revisions\/6778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}