Seeing the Truth

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

SEEING THE TRUTH

John 4:39-42

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers. 42 They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."

NIV

It is one thing to be a witness for Christ, to tell everyone about what Jesus has done in our lives, but it is entirely a different matter when those people we told about Jesus have an honest to God real experience with Jesus themselves. We see here that many of the Samaritans came to see Jesus based on the testimony of the woman, one who may not even had the best reputation in town, having gone through five husbands and living with the sixth without the legality of marriage. Nevertheless based on her words, they urged him to stay a while, which he did. They were open to investigate the possibility that he was the Messiah, as she had asked them, “Could this be the Christ?” After several days of listening to Jesus and we are not told here if he did any miracles, but rather just talked with them, many more of them came to know that he was the Christ, the Savior of the world. Some simply believed because of the woman’s testimony, but many more believed because of their encounter with Jesus. The point here is they were open to listening to him. He came as a Jew because that is how God had decided to reveal Jesus to the world, but he came for the whole world, which here we see he had already expanded to the Samaritans. We could learn a great lesson here in that we can share our testimony about what Jesus did in our lives, but it still requires the openness of those who still need to see and listen to Jesus. Some may believe based on our testimony, but some may not believe until they encounter Jesus for themselves and the truth is he will met them right where they are. He will stay, tarry with them, speaking to their hearts and mind, convincing them he is the Christ, the Savior of the world. People can refuse to listen, close their minds from the truth about him, and we already know it is because they love the darkness, they would rather live completely within self, serving only their own needs, even those who do great humanitarian deeds, if they do not do it for the sake of Christ, they do it for the sake of self. But if people are open minded as these Samaritans where they will see the truth about Jesus.