John Devotional | Week 9 | Nov 7-11

Read John 4:43-54. 

After reporting Jesus’ interaction with a Samaritan woman and the resulting belief of many Samaritans, John turns his readers attention to the second sign in John’s gospel.

• List all of the people who are part of this passage.
• List all the things you learn about them, both from their actions and their titles.
• Summarize the interaction between Jesus and the official.
  • Reflect: Consider the response of the official.  Is that the kind of belief you have in Jesus?  How are you inclined to respond when he doesn’t work in the exact ways you have asked him to work?
• Summarize the interesting contrast between the Galileans’ attitude to Jesus in v. 44 and Jesus’ words to them in v. 48 (the “you” is plural, referring to them as a whole).
  • What does it indicate about why they welcomed Jesus?  What their welcome dependent upon?

Pray today in adoration and supplication.  Praise Jesus for the ways in which he has answered your prayers, especially for those instances where he answered in a way you were not expecting.  Ask that he would grant you belief, especially in those instances where you do not see signs that show he is working.

Read John 4:43-54.  

John goes out of his way to show that Jesus is returning to a place he had already been in John’s gospel.

• Note the locations that are mentioned in the passage.
• List the things that we learn about each location (i.e. what previous events took place there?)
• Do a quick Google search to find the distance between Capernaum and Cana.  Given that people can travel about 20 miles on foot in a day, and that the official and Jesus’ interaction took place at “the seventh hour” (v. 52-53), which is already halfway through a day (and that people don’t travel overnight), how do these details give further information about the belief of the official?  How did he respond to Jesus not coming with him, but instead simply speaking into existence the healing of his son?
  • Reflect: Place yourself in the official’s shoes.  What would the journey home have been like?  He had believed Jesus, but then has hours of waiting to see if anything had changed.  How have you felt in those times where you believe God, but have been put in a time of waiting to see how he will come through?

Pray today in reflection and confession.  How often do you struggle to trust that God is indeed at work while you wait? Confess those doubts to God, and ask that he remind you of his faithfulness and perfect timing.

The attitude of the Galileans is one which is not unique to them through the whole of the Bible.

• Read Numbers 14:5-11.
  • What are the people refusing to do in this passage?
  • What does God say they are overlooking?
  • Scan through Exodus 14:1-17:7.  What were some of the things God had just recently done for his people?
• Read Numbers 14:20-25.
  • What happened to those who demanded further signs from God?
  • How do these verses help us to see how remarkable it is that God continued to provide for the people, even after they had disobeyed him and continued to demand more and more signs?
  • What does this show us about Jesus in John 4:43-54?  Specifically, what does it show us about the mercy of God in both the Old and New Testaments?

Pray today in confession and adoration.  Ask God to help you with the unbelief that demands sign after sign from him in order to believe. At the same time, praise God that just as he was kind to provide for those who grumbled and disobeyed in the Old Testament, Jesus too is the Son of God who performs miracles even for those who doubt him, and demand more and more signs in our passage this week.

The kind of sign that Jesus does shares elements with other signs that God did throughout the Old Testament.

• Read Psalm 107:1-32, focusing on verses 17-22.  
  • The Psalm is organized around three repeating sections (vv. 4-9, 10-16, 17-22).  Summarize the kinds of predicaments that God saves people from.
  • Summarize all of the ways in which God saves, especially noting v. 20.
  • What does this tell you about the power of God’s word?

• Read 1 Kings 17:8-24.  
  • Focusing first on vv, 8-16, note the similarities between Elijah’s first miracle and Jesus’ miracle (specifically how each made the miracle happen).
  • Focusing then on vv. 17-24, note the similarities between Elijah’s second miracle and Jesus’ miracle (specifically what kind of miracles they both were).
  • Finally, focusing on what Elijah says in verses 14 and 21, what is the key difference between the miracles Elijah did and the one Jesus did?

Pray today in adoration.  Worship Jesus as the Son of God who speaks with the power of God, and that he uses that power to bring healing and restoration to the world.

John 4:43-54 shows us a sign Jesus did in a place where people were not quick to believe in him, demanding he prove that he was worth their belief over and over again.  Even so, Jesus did a merciful miracle which led to the belief of an entire household.

• Consider the emotional state of the official while he travelled home from his encounter with Jesus.  What would have been going through his mind?
• Think about the response of everyone who lived in their house.  What did this sign show them about Jesus?
• Read v. 54 again.  What would the people of Galilee have known about Jesus at this point because of the two signs he had performed?

• Reflect: How has God come through for you in times where you were uncertain if he would?  How has God made his faithfulness known to you over the years?

Pray today in supplication.  Ask God that he would help you in your areas of unbelief by helping you to love and believe Jesus, as he is presented to you in this story.  Ask the same for those Christians in your life who you know are struggling, so that they would see Jesus and believe him.