When Philip first brings Nathaniel to meet the man he suspects is the long-awaited messiah, Jesus pays Nathaniel what has to be one of the greatest compliments of all time: “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” (John 1:47)<\/p>\n\n\n
What an odd thing to say. Nathaniel responds, “Have we met before? How do you know me?”<\/p>\n\n\n
For us, living in an age of cell phones, surveillance cameras, and drones, it might be difficult to imagine why Nathaniel is so amazed by Jesus’s answer, but in his day, it was inexplicable: “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
And that is all it takes to elicit this confession of faith from Nathaniel: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”<\/p>\n\n\n
This seems to amuse Jesus: “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You are going to see greater things than that<\/i><\/b>!”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Really? How are you going to top being able to see something happening miles away as it happens?<\/p>\n\n\n
“I tell you the truth – you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”<\/p>\n\n\n
The topic switches from what Jesus saw<\/i> to what Nathaniel himself is going to see<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n
Heaven opening and angels on the move. You are going to see an alternate reality. A deeper reality, more real than that fig tree you were sitting under. A fourth dimension.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Here’s the takeaway: Whatever attracted YOU to Jesus in the first place –\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
his purity, his wisdom, his challenging teachings, or anything else –\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
stick with Him. Follow Him closely. Don’t wander away.<\/p>\n\n\n
Because you ain’t seen nothing yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Philip first brings Nathaniel to meet the man he suspects is the long-awaited messiah, Jesus pays Nathaniel what has to be one of the greatest compliments of all time: “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” (John 1:47) What an odd thing to say. Nathaniel responds, “Have we met before? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4155,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4154\/revisions\/4155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}