Pay Attention or Pay the Price +

Jesus asked, “Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?”
John 4:48

Near the end of the 4th chapter of John, Jesus is traveling through Galilee to Cana (where He had performed the first public miracle - turned the water into wine). A government official in Capernaum finds out Jesus is there and travels to Cana (about 15 miles between Cana and Capernaum) to beg Him to come heal his son who is about to die. That's when Jesus asked the question in our text, "Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?" And it's almost as if the official wasn't paying attention because his response to the Lord's question was to plead for Jesus to please come right then before the boy died.

Jesus did not bow His head in obeisance because it was a government official. Jesus did not stop what He was doing and turn around and clutch the distressed father to His chest and assure him that they would make haste to go heal his son before he died. Jesus' reply was more like a retort in nature, "Go home. Your son will live." Then the VERY next words of the verse are, And the man believed what Jesus said and started home.

The government official did not take a poll of his friends to see if they thought he'd heard the Lord's voice. He did not demand that Jesus go with him to be sure his son was healed. He did not even ask Jesus if He was sure. In an amazing display of faith in action, the government official BELIEVED and started home. (Remember, Jesus had asked, "Will you never believe unless you see...") The official had paid attention to every word that came out of the Lord's mouth.

There is a huge price to pay for unbelief. Not just that we lose out on our miracle or God's perfect will - we are in danger of not entering into His rest. Read Hebrews 3, beginning with verse 12, Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. Remember what it says: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.”
And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest.

Pay attention or pay the price.

Prayer:

Father,
           Forgive us for not being first-time hearers and doers of the words You speak. Give us hearing ears and seeing eyes and a heart tuned in to only You and Your desires. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen