If you live in the United States or any other developed nation, you will probably never see a person with leprosy. It’s a horrible skin disease that actually eats away at the parts of the body it has infected. People who are afflicted with leprosy watch their fingers and toes slowly dissolve. Eventually, they die from the disease. To make matters worse, leprosy is easily spread to other people, so no one wants to be near a leper. When a person gets leprosy, he soon loses all his friends. In the Old Testament, God made a law that required all leprous people to cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” whenever they were in a public place where other people might be infected (see Leviticus 13:45).

The Greek word translated leprosy was used to describe various skin diseases in Jesus’ time, so it’s possible that this man whom Jesus healed was not suffering from the disease we refer to today as leprosy. However, there’s no doubt he had a very serious physical problem, and his situation was desperate. He fell on his knees before Jesus, begging to be healed. From the reports he had heard of others being healed, he knew Jesus was able to cure him. But he didn’t know if Jesus wanted to heal him. Jesus, however, was moved with pity for the distraught man, and assured him that He did want to heal him. A second later, the leprous man felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time: the touch of another person. As Jesus put His hand on him, instantly his leprosy was gone. Imagine how he felt as he looked at his new skin!

Some people think that Jesus healed people only to prove that He was the Son of God. Certainly Jesus’ healings did prove that. Because God the Father had given Him authority over all things, including disease, Jesus simply spoke and the leprous man was instantly healed. We read today, however, that Jesus was “moved with pity” over the leprous man’s situation. Jesus healed this man because He loved him, not just to prove that He was the Son of God.

For all Christians, this healing story, along with the many others in the Bible, affirms that God cares about our health and will one day give us brand new bodies that will not be subject to sickness and disease. For some Christians, like myself, the stories of people whom Jesus healed inspire us to trust that we don’t have to wait until heaven to experience physical healing. Jesus never told anyone who came to Him requesting healing, “Rejoice, because in heaven you’ll be healthy.” In every case, He healed sick people, often crediting their faith. When we remain ill, we often claim that it must not be God’s will for us to be healed, but more likely, our own lack of faith is to blame. Jesus said, “Anything is possible if a person believes” (Mark 9:23). Praise God that we can trust God for healing, and praise God that even if we fail to trust God for healing, He doesn’t condemn us.

According to the Old Testament law, the priests were responsible to determine whether or not people had leprosy. If a person thought he might have contracted the disease, he was supposed to be examined by a priest. If the priest declared him a leper, he had to obey the laws of leprosy, removing himself from contact with non-leprous society. Likewise, if a leprous person was healed, only a priest could make the official determination and allow the former leper reentry into normal society.

Jesus commanded this leper to obey that law and show himself to the priest, taking along the required offering, as a testimony of his healing. It was probably the first time that priest ever performed that part of his job, declaring a leper to be cleansed! I wonder if he had to look up the appropriate scriptures just to find out what he was supposed to do!

Q. Why did Jesus tell this man He healed not to talk to anyone on his way to the priest?

A. Because Jesus didn’t need any more advertising. If the former leper started spreading the news of what happened, Jesus knew He would soon be mobbed with people, and it would actually hinder His ministry. Sure enough, the man didn’t obey Jesus, telling everyone what had happened, and Jesus was then unable to publicly enter any nearby towns. Several days later, Jesus did sneak back into Capernaum where He had been living, but was soon discovered. Within a short time, the house where He was staying was crammed with people, inside and out (see Mark 2:1-4).

Q. Wouldn’t it be horrible never to be touched by anyone? Sometimes parents feel like they must have leprosy, because their kids never hug or kiss them (especially when their kids are with friends). Have you hugged your parents today?

Application: In one way, we were like this leper. We had a spiritual disease that prevented us from ever hoping to enter the society of heaven. But Jesus cleansed us! Now we can look forward to enjoying eternal life with the many others like us whom Jesus has cleansed of sin.

After spending two days in Sychar (where Jesus met the woman at the well) Jesus and His disciples continued journeying to the region of Galilee. When they arrived, Jesus preached in many places, telling people to repent and believe the good news. He often taught on Saturdays, the Sabbath day of the Jews, in their small church buildings, called synagogues.

One of the places Jesus visited in Galilee was Nazareth, the town in which He had grown up. Because He never sinned, Jesus probably had a good reputation there. However, when He had lived among them, none of His friends or acquaintances realized He was God’s Son. He had never told them who He was or worked any miracles. To the people of Nazareth, Jesus was just a good man, a carpenter by trade, one of the five sons of Mary and Joseph (see Matthew 13:55-56; Mark 6:3). Since they had last seen Him, however, He had received the power of the Holy Spirit, and they had heard He was performing miracles in other parts of Galilee. Now it was time for Jesus to tell them who He was, and so He joined the people of Nazareth at their synagogue one Saturday.

On this occasion, Jesus was given the scroll of the book of Isaiah to read before the congregation. He opened it to some verses that described the Messiah’s ministry, hoping they would realize that He was the one of whom Isaiah had written. The word messiah means “anointed one,” and the portion of Isaiah’s prophecy from which Jesus read, spoke of a person who would be anointed by God’s Spirit to preach, deliver and heal. That is exactly what Jesus had been doing. In fact, the first thing the people of Nazareth noticed was Jesus’ ability to speak. They were all “amazed by the gracious words that fell from his lips” (Luke 4:22).

Even though the people of Nazareth had heard the report of His miracles in other towns, most of them refused to believe that one of their hometown boys was the anointed person Isaiah had predicted would come. They wanted to see some miracles right before their eyes before they would believe in Him. Their hearts were hard, and Jesus responded to their unbelief by saying that prophets are usually not received in their hometowns.

Even though Jesus wasn’t surprised by their unbelief, He was saddened by it, because He knew it would hinder God’s work in their midst. Then He cited two other prophets who weren’t received by their own people, and as a result, those people missed out on blessings that other people, even foreigners, enjoyed. Once during the time of Elijah the prophet, there was a three-and-one-half year famine in Israel. Jesus said that there were many Israelite widows who suffered during that famine, but God sent Elijah only to a foreign widow to provide food supernaturally for her. And during the time of the prophet Elisha, there were many Israelites who needed to be healed of leprosy, but God used Elisha to heal only one leper, and he also was a foreigner.

Jesus’ message to the people of Nazareth was clear: because they rejected Him, an anointed man of God and the Messiah, they would forfeit God’s blessing, just like the Israelites of Elijah and Elisha’s day. When the people in the synagogue realized what Jesus was saying, their mood quickly changed. At the beginning of His sermon, “all who were there spoke well of him” (Luke 4:22). By the end of His sermon, they wanted to kill Him, revealing the wickedness within their hearts. As they often do, desires turned into deeds, and they attempted to kill Him by throwing Him over a cliff. Jesus, however, was somehow supernaturally delivered. Perhaps God the Father made Him temporarily invisible! Wouldn’t that be fun if God did that to you?

Q. According to the Bible, Jesus had four younger brothers and at least two younger sisters. He knows what it is like to live as part of a family. What kind of an older brother do you think Jesus was?

A. He was the perfect older brother! That means He always thought first of His younger brothers and sisters before thinking of Himself. He assisted them whenever they needed His help and shared with them what was His. Because Jesus lives in you by the Holy Spirit, you have the potential to be the kind of brother (or sister) that Jesus was as He grew up.

Q. Just as the people who knew Jesus before He was anointed by the Holy Spirit found it difficult to believe that He was the Messiah, often the people who knew us before we were born again by God’s Spirit have a difficult time believing that we’ve been changed. What is the best way to convince them that you’re not the person they knew before?

A. By our daily lives. As they listen to us and observe our actions, they’ll see that we’ve changed. Then they’ll be more open to hearing the good news about Jesus.

Application: People who reject Jesus reject God’s blessings. Because we believe in Jesus, God is going to bless us forever!

The people who lived in the region of Samaria came from a mixed ancestry of Jews and Gentiles. Because of that, the Samaritans were hated by the Jews who considered themselves of purer ancestry, and the Samaritans hated them in return. It was the same as it is today, when people of different races or cultures hate each other only because they’re different.

But God isn’t prejudiced. He loves everybody, no matter what color their skin is or what language they speak. Today’s reading provides additional proof that Jesus was God, because He loved a Samaritan whom an ordinary Jew would have hated. This woman was very surprised when Jesus spoke to her, because usually, Jews didn’t even speak to Samaritans!

Jesus told her that if she knew who He was and what He could give her, she would have been the one to initiate the conversation, asking Him for some very special water. Obviously, when Jesus offered her living water, He was speaking symbolically of something else. What was it? Let’s look at how Jesus described it.

First, it was something that only He could give. It wasn’t available from any other source. Second, it was a free gift, not something that could be purchased or earned. Third, like water, it would go inside people, forever satisfying their spiritual thirst. And fourth, when the living water went inside, it would give people eternal life. Jesus must have been speaking about receiving the Holy Spirit and being born again. He was offering the Samaritan woman salvation.

She, however, didn’t understand what Jesus was talking about, and she probably began to wonder if He was a little crazy. So she jokingly requested some of His living water so she wouldn’t ever be thirsty or have to haul water again from the well to her house. She was probably thinking to herself, “How can I get away from this oddball?”

But Jesus knew how to make her seriously consider what He was saying. Before she could see her need for a Savior, she had to acknowledge she was a sinner. So Jesus told her to call her husband, and she replied that she didn’t have a husband. By telling a partial truth, she was trying to hide a big secret of which she was very ashamed. And that is when Jesus really got her attention, telling her He knew that she had been married and divorced five times and that now she was living with a man who was not her husband. Now she knew she was talking with Somebody special! He must be a prophet to know things about her past, and she wanted to change the subject in a hurry before He began talking about anything else of which she was ashamed! So she quickly brought up a religious question about the proper place to worship.

Jesus downplayed the importance of what was at that time a big dispute between Jews and Samaritans. It doesn’t make any difference where a person worships. What matters is how he worships. Just because a person is worshipping in Jerusalem or at Mount Gerizim doesn’t mean his worship is acceptable to God. The important thing is the condition of a person’s heart. The only kind of worship that is acceptable and pleasing to God is worship that is done by people who worship “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). That is, their worship has to originate from their spirits, or hearts, and it must be sincere, not just a ritual. They worship God with their lives, living obediently to Him all the time. Only people who are born again can worship that way, and that is exactly what this Samaritan woman lacked.

Still hoping to end their conversation, she tried an argument that guilty people have always used to evade their accountability before God: “People will always disagree about religious issues, but someday God will straighten us all out. So there’s no sense in us discussing it now.” This woman, however, made the mistake of saying that she figured that when the Messiah came, He would explain everything. So Jesus dropped the bomb, telling her that He was the Messiah! And He was explaining to her what she needed to know, so she had no more excuses! Now she was faced with the biggest decision of her life, but we’ll have to wait for tomorrow to find out what she decided. (This is what is known as a “cliff-hanger devotional”!)

Q. Is it OK for Christians to be prejudiced against people of other races or cultures?

A. No. Christians should reflect the love that God has for all people. Jesus died for everyone, and the greatest act of love we can show anyone is to tell them about Jesus.

Q. Have you ever tried to convince someone of his or her need for Jesus, but, like this Samaritan woman, he or she keeps trying to evade the issues? What did you learn from Jesus about how to deal with people like that?

A. Don’t let them direct the conversation onto what is really not important. Keep it centered on two things: their sinfulness and need for a Savior, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only way anyone can be saved.

Application: Am I a person who worships “in spirit and truth,” or am I just a religious person who practices certain rituals? Is worshipping God something I do just because I’m in church, or something I do because I love God with my heart? Is my daily life an act of worship to God?

When Jesus told this woman at the well of Sychar that He was the Messiah, she had to make a decision that everybody must make: to believe or not to believe. We can’t be absolutely certain from what we’ve read today, but it seems this woman at the well was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. Soon after Jesus told her who He was, she left her water jar and went back into her village, telling everyone to come and meet a man who knew her past. “Can this be the Messiah?” she asked them. Perhaps she was sincerely uncertain at that point and wanted to hear the opinions of the people of her village. Or, perhaps she was already convinced about Jesus, and her apparent uncertainty was just a means of wise persuasion by a woman with a bad reputation in her village. Regardless, after Jesus stayed with the people of Sychar for two days, many of them believed that He was the “Savior of the world” (John 4:42). Though they had previously hated all Jews, these Samaritan people now loved a Jewish man who had first loved them.

While the woman was back in her village telling people what had happened to her, Jesus’ disciples returned from the village with food. They urged Him to eat something, and, not surprisingly, Jesus saw the opportunity to convey a spiritual lesson. He responded, “No…I have food you don’t know about” (John 4:32). They thought someone else had brought Him food, but Jesus was talking about His spiritual hunger being satisfied by doing the will of His Father. Just as they had a physical hunger that could only be satisfied with food, He had a spiritual hunger that could only be satisfied by obedience. And, just as we feel much better after eating a good meal (especially if we were really hungry beforehand), Jesus was enjoying the good feeling that came from sharing God’s truth with the woman at the well.

Comparing them to harvesters, Jesus then encouraged His disciples to get involved in telling people the good news of who He was. They didn’t need to wait for the harvest to ripen as do those who harvest wheat or apples. Jesus’ followers were hired to harvest people, and there are always people who are ready to receive the gospel. When Jesus told His disciples this, they were just minutes away from being crowded by spiritually hungry people from Sychar who would soon be saved!

Q. Is there a spiritual hunger inside of us to do God’s will?

A. Yes, if a person is born again, Jesus lives inside him by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus wants to obey God the Father. When we obey God by telling people His truth, we’ll get a good feeling on the inside, because our spiritual hunger will be satisfied for a while.

Q. Is leading people to Jesus the only thing that we can do that contributes to the spiritual harvest that God desires?

A. No, Jesus said that some people plant seeds, while others harvest. We can plant seeds by loving unbelievers, living rightly before them and by sharing the good news. Although they might not believe in Jesus immediately, hopefully our good influence will lead to their eventual conversion, even if someone else gets the privilege of actually seeing them repent and become a follower of Christ. However, Jesus said that there is joy awaiting both planters and harvesters. When we get to heaven and see the people there whom we helped come to Christ, we will be very happy!

Application: We should live our lives in such a way that people are attracted to Jesus. The most important thing that we can do is tell someone else about Jesus.

Today we realize even more what a humble man John the Baptist was. We can learn a lot about humility by considering his words and deeds.

Although John was, according to Jesus, the greatest person to have ever lived (see Matthew 11:11), John knew that Jesus was far superior to himself, since Jesus was God from heaven. Pride sneaks into our lives when we compare ourselves with others. If we know we’re better at doing something than someone else, we can become prideful. If, however, we will compare ourselves with Jesus, as John did, we won’t be able to become proud.

Most often, we compare ourselves with people who have similar abilities and talents. If I’m a basketball player, I don’t care how good another person might be at playing the piano—I’m only interested in other basketball players. For a while, John was the most famous preacher around. Multitudes traveled great distances to hear his anointed sermons and to be baptized. But then Jesus started doing the same things as John, preaching and baptizing, and Jesus’ popularity began to grow. Additionally, God gave Jesus the Holy Spirit “without measure” (John 3:34), something He didn’t do for John. Thus Jesus was able to perform miracles, something John never did, and those miracles really attracted large crowds. God the Father gave Jesus “authority over everything” (John 3:35), including sicknesses and demons. Before long, hardly anyone was coming to hear John, and some of his own disciples became jealous for him.

John, however, realized his place and time in God’s plan. His job was to prepare the way for Jesus. The whole idea from the beginning was that Jesus would be exalted, not John. John knew his ministry would be temporary and said of Jesus, “He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less” (John 3:30). Proud people don’t want to ever let go of something God has given them, even when it’s obvious that God’s plan for them is that they move on to do something else because God has anointed another person to take their place. Proud people want to be recognized and appreciated more and more. Christians, however, should want Jesus to become greater in people’s minds, not themselves. They should be interested in building God’s kingdom and not kingdoms for themselves. They should want to be servants, not rulers.

John also knew that Jesus was the only way to heaven, and that only Jesus could give eternal life to people who believed in Him. John clearly understood that those who truly believe in Jesus obey Him. John said, “Those who don’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life, but the wrath of God remains upon them” (John 3:36, emphasis added). This doesn’t mean that if we commit a sin that we will go to hell, because no Christian is perfect and we all do sin at times. We know from reading the rest of the New Testament that John was talking about people who never obey Jesus, living a lifestyle of sin and selfishness. They are not submitted to Jesus at all, which proves they don’t believe in Him.

Q. Could God ever be guilty of the sin of pride?

A. No, it would be impossible for God to think too highly of Himself. When He speaks of His own wonderful attributes, He isn’t bragging—He’s only telling the truth.

Q. Is there something that you do better than others? (Parents, this would be a good time for you to compliment your kids for things they do well, as they may think they’re being proud if they respond.) Could that talent be an inroad for pride? What can you do to keep pride out?

Q. Is it prideful to say, “I’m a good swimmer” if you are a good swimmer?

A. No. Pride is having an inflated or unrealistic opinion of yourself. To say that you are a good swimmer when you are a good swimmer is simply telling the truth. But, to say that you are the world’s best swimmer (unless you are) would be prideful. It’s best to talk as little as possible about yourself, your abilities and your accomplishments, because even if you are just telling the truth, some people might think you are pridefully boasting. As the proverb says, “Don’t praise yourself; let others do it!” (Proverbs 27:2).

Application: The Bible says that God humbles those who exalt themselves and exalts those who humble themselves. In which of these two categories do you fall?

The Pharisees of Jesus’ time were a very strict sect of Jews. They tried to follow all of God’s laws fully as well as many laws they made up themselves, thinking they could earn their way to heaven. Nicodemus was not only a Pharisee, but also a member of the Jewish ruling council and a very well known religious teacher. He was amazed by the miracles Jesus performed, and was convinced that Jesus was sent from God. However, he didn’t yet know that Jesus was actually the divine Son of God. So Jesus knew He needed to explain some very important things to Nicodemus.

He began by telling Nicodemus that, in order to get into heaven, he had to be born a second time. Nicodemus didn’t understand what Jesus meant. He couldn’t imagine how he could ever go back inside his mother and be born another time! So Jesus explained that He wasn’t talking about his body being born again through his mother, but his spirit being reborn through the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that every person is three parts: spirit, soul and body (see 1 Thess. 5:23). Your body is what you can see in the mirror. Your soul is your mind and emotions. Your spirit is the real you that lives inside your body. It is not made of bones or blood, but of spiritual material. It has a shape and form, just like your body. When your body dies, you, as a spirit, will leave your body and go to heaven if you are a follower of Jesus.

It is people’s spirits that need to be reborn in order for them to get into God’s future kingdom because if a person is not born again, his spirit has a sinful, satanic nature that has no relationship with God. He is spiritually dead. But when a person repents and believes in Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes into his spirit and removes the old sinful nature and gives that person a new nature, making him a child of God. Before a person is born again, the devil is his spiritual father. After he is born again, God is his spiritual Father.

As Jesus said, none of us can see the wind, and neither can we see people’s spirits being born again nor the Holy Spirit that makes people’s spirits new. However, just as we can see the effects of the wind, for example, leaves moving in the trees, so we can see the effects of the Holy Spirit when He moves inside a person’s spirit. When He does, people start loving God and serving Him.

Jesus also explained to Nicodemus what he had to do in order to be born again. He told Nicodemus that He would be lifted up on a pole, meaning the cross, and that anyone who believed in Him would then forever have the new life that the Holy Spirit gives. It was just like the story of Moses and the people of Israel in the desert. One time God became very angry with them because of their sins, so He sent snakes into their camp, and anyone who was bitten, died. Moses prayed for God to have mercy, and so God told Moses to make a snake out of bronze and attach it to a pole. Moses then sent news to the people, “If anyone who is dying from a snake bite will come and look at the bronze snake on the pole, he will live.”

The people who believed the news came, looked, and were healed. In the same way, all people have been filled with the venom of sin. Their spirits are dead and their bodies are dying. But if they will believe in the Lord Jesus who hung on the cross, bearing our sins, their dead spirits will be made alive and their bodies will one day live again forever. Have you believed that good news? If you have, you’ve been born twice! (Maybe you should try to convince your mom that you deserve two birthday parties every year!)

Q. Jesus said that people must be born of “water” as well as the Spirit. What do you think He meant?

A. Different Christians have different answers to that question. Some say Jesus was talking about when a person is born as a baby. When babies are inside their mothers, they are enclosed by a sac of water. Just before they’re born, that water sac breaks, so water comes out before the baby does.

A second interpretation is that Jesus was referring to people being baptized. Everyone who believes in Jesus should be baptized in water soon after they first believe. However, you don’t have to be baptized in order to be born again. Baptism represents what has already happened the moment a person first believes in Jesus: He was dead but now has come back to life. Being under the water symbolizes being buried, and coming out of the water symbolizes being raised from the dead.

A third interpretation is that water is symbolic for God’s Word. Truly, in order to be born again, a person needs to first hear the good news of Jesus’ sacrificial death. Then, if he believes it, the Holy Spirit causes his spirit to be born again. People need both the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to be reborn.

Q. We read the most famous verse in the whole New Testament today, John 3:16. It tells us why God gave us His only Son. Why did He?

A. Because He loves us.

Application: Since our spirits have been born again, we should follow the inward leading of our new nature to obey God, and not the evil leading of the old nature that we also still possess. We’re thankful that one day that old sinful nature will be completely done away with when we get brand new bodies.

Jesus really wanted Nicodemus to understand how he could have his sins forgiven and be born again. Nicodemus needed to know that salvation is not something that he could earn , but something that was earned for him by Jesus Christ and is therefore a free gift from God. It is only through Jesus that anyone can be saved. That is why Jesus told Nicodemus that God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn it, but to save it. God wants everyone in the world to be saved because He loves us all.

If God wants every person to be saved, then why isn’t everyone saved? The reason is because people have a part to play in their salvation. As Jesus explained to Nicodemus, every person must individually, by himself, believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

But why doesn’t everyone believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Jesus explained the answer to that question by using the words darkness and light. Darkness represents ignorance (which means not knowing the truth). Light is symbolic of knowing the truth. When you turn out the lights in your bedroom at night, you are somewhat ignorant of where things are. You can’t see where you’re going and might stub your toe on your bed. But when the light is on, you can clearly see your path. Now you know what you didn’t know when you were in darkness.

Jesus said that light from heaven came into the world. He was speaking of the truth that He brought from God the Father and shared with people on earth. Jesus said that people love the darkness and hate the light. They stay away from the light. That is, they don’t want to know the truth that Jesus brought.

But why don’t people want to know the truth? Jesus also explained that. The reason is because people don’t want to stop sinning, and they know that if they come to the light and believe the truth, they will have to change the way they live. So they remain in the darkness, purposely believing all kinds of lies from Satan so that they can continue rebelling against God.

That is the reason, for example, that some people believe that there is no God. Even though it is obvious from looking at all God has made that He must exist, people don’t want to believe it because they know that if there is a God, He has a right to tell them how to live. They want to control their own lives and keep sinning, so they believe the lie that God doesn’t exist.

Thankfully, some people come out of the darkness into the light. Those are people who willingly repent of their rebellion against God because they believe the good news that Jesus is the Son of God who freely offers them salvation. This is why it is necessary to repent, or turn away from sin and selfishness, in order to be saved. Repenting of sin doesn’t earn us our salvation—but repenting is the proof that we really believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Some people think they are saved even though they have never repented of sin, but they are mistaken. True Christians, although not perfect, are trying to please God and obey Him. People who are constantly sinning aren’t really saved. They are still living in darkness, believing the lie that they can have a relationship with God while they continue a lifestyle of disobedience to Him. They will go to hell when they die. But those who have truly believed in Jesus, as proven by how they live their lives, don’t have to worry about going to hell. As Jesus said, “There is no judgment awaiting those who trust” Him (John 3:18).

Q. Nicodemus heard everything he needed to know in order to be saved, but our reading today doesn’t tell us if he believed it. Do you think Nicodemus ever “came to the light”?

A. According to other scripture verses, we know that he did. He helped another man, Joseph of Arimathea, bury Jesus’ body after He was crucified (see John 19:38-42). By doing so, because he was a ruler and well-known teacher of the Jews, Nicodemus risked being rejected by many people who hated Jesus. But it is better to believe in Jesus and be rejected by others than not to believe in Jesus and be rejected by God and cast into hell!

Application: Sometimes kids who are raised in Christian homes and who have always been taught to do the right thing have a hard time remembering when they first believed in Jesus and repented of their sins. Perhaps you are one of those kids. If you are, don’t let it concern you. The important thing is, do you believe in Jesus right now? And is your faith in Jesus evident by how you live your life? Are you trying to obey God? Perhaps your parents, if they were not raised in a Christian home, can tell you about when they first believed in Jesus and repented.

Many people like to hear about God’s love, but they aren’t interested in hearing about God’s anger with sin and wrongdoing. Today’s reading reveals that side of God. Jesus was obviously very angry about what was taking place in the Temple, and He reacted furiously.

What was Jesus so mad about? Of course, there’s nothing sinful about buying or selling animals or exchanging money. Jesus was angry over the fact that the Temple in Jerusalem, a sacred place where His Father was supposed to be honored and worshipped, had been turned into a marketplace. The Temple was the place where the priests offered sacrifices to the Lord, and in the innermost part of the Temple, called “The Holy of Holies,” God’s presence resided. But in Jesus’ day, the people around the Temple weren’t focused on God or serving the people who came to worship God, but on making money. Not only that, but they were taking advantage of people who came from far away places to worship at the Temple, charging them very high prices to purchase animals and exchange their foreign currency. In another Gospel, the writer records Jesus saying to the merchants at the Temple, “‘My Temple will be called a place of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves ” (Matthew 21:13, emphasis added). There was dishonesty in their dealings, and God doesn’t like that, as Jesus so clearly revealed.

What we’ve read today contains a lot of proof that Jesus was the Messiah and was God in the form of a human being. First, we learned that a verse in the Old Testament book of Psalms foretold that the Messiah would have very strong emotions about God’s house, or Temple. That same Psalm also predicted that the Messiah would be given sour wine to quench His thirst, just as Jesus was when He hung on the cross (see Psalm 69:21 and Matthew 27:34, 48).

Second, if Jesus wasn’t God, then He had no right to chase out the oxen and sheep or overturn the tables of the moneychangers, spilling their money all over the ground. Any person who was not God and who did such a thing would be guilty of not showing respect for the private property of other people. God created everything and owns everything, so everyone and his property belongs to Him! He can do what He wants with anyone’s property, and Jesus, being God, knew He had that right.

Some of the Jewish leaders thought Jesus had no right to do what He did, and they asked Him to justify His actions. He responded by telling them about His resurrection, although they didn’t understand what He was talking about. This is a third proof to us that Jesus was God. Not only did He come back to life after being dead for three days, He predicted it would happen three years before it did!

Q. Jesus told the Jewish leaders who questioned Him, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). He was speaking of the temple of His body, but His listeners thought He was speaking about the Jerusalem Temple building. How was Jesus’ body even more of God’s temple than the Jerusalem Temple?

A. Because Jesus was actually God in the form of a human being, His body was much more a temple of God than the Temple building, which only contained God’s presence in the innermost parts.

Q. In the final verses of today’s reading, we read that Jesus didn’t trust everyone who said they believed in Him. Why didn’t He?

A. Because Jesus knew that people are often liars, and just because someone says he believes in Jesus doesn’t prove he actually does. A person’s actions speak louder than his words, and so the true proof that someone believes in Jesus is his obedience to the Lord.

Application: Because Jesus has come into our temples, and because we are now temples of God, we should keep our temple clean from sin and anything that is not pleasing to Jesus.

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If you’ve ever been to a wedding reception, you probably remember having lots of food to eat and wedding punch to drink. Can you imagine how embarrassed the bride and bridegroom would be if people were standing in line to get punch and were told the punch had run out? The wedding guests would know that the hosts hadn’t planned properly, and in a hot climate like Israel, their thirst would certainly aggravate the situation. This is what occurred at this wedding in the village of Cana that Jesus, His mother and disciples attended.

When Mary told Jesus about the wine running out, Jesus responded with words we wouldn’t have expected. “How does that concern you and me?” Jesus asked. “My time has not yet come” (John 2:4). If we read through the whole Gospel of John, we discover that Jesus spoke often about His “time” coming, and it becomes obvious that He was always referring to the time when He would die for the sins of the world. So when Jesus responded to Mary’s statement about the lack of wine, He must have been thinking about people lacking, not wine, but something that wouldn’t be provided until He died. It’s possible that Jesus was referring to His own blood, which was symbolized by wine at the Last Supper. Or He may have been speaking about the Holy Spirit, who is sometimes symbolized by wine in the New Testament. Everyone needs to have his sins forgiven through the shedding of Jesus’ blood and be born again by the Holy Spirit. Both of those are much greater needs than wine running out at a wedding feast. Jesus was concerned about much more important things than Mary was.

Jesus, however, must have been somewhat concerned about the lack of wine at the wedding feast because He performed a miracle to solve the problem. That miracle may also have had a deeper spiritual meaning, because Jesus didn’t change just any water into wine—He changed water that was used by the Jews for the purpose of purification rites into wine. Because of the many laws that God gave the Jews to keep, they were very conscious (or aware) of their sinfulness, and they were always trying to keep themselves symbolically purified by various washings with water. But since Jesus died for us, cleansing us from all the guilt of our sins, we don’t need any other way of getting spiritually clean. Knowing that we’re cleansed, we can now enjoy ourselves, drinking Jesus’ good wine. Now we can really celebrate!

But isn’t it wrong to drink anything that is alcoholic? If so, why did Jesus change water into wine that day?

Historians tell us that the Jews always diluted their wine with water, so the amount of alcohol in their wine was very small. It was more like what we today call “grape juice” than what we today call wine. We must also remember that, other than water, wine was practically the only beverage people could drink back in Jesus’ day, and the water that was available was often contaminated and undrinkable in the villages and cities. We have many choices of beverages today, so no one has to drink wine. Christians don’t all agree if it is wrong for them to drink alcoholic beverages, but one thing all true Christians agree on is this: the Bible very clearly says that it is a sin to get drunk. Getting drunk starts with one drink, and if that one drink begins to cloud a person’s thinking, he might more easily yield to the temptation for another drink and then another. The safest thing to do is completely abstain from all alcoholic drinks.

Alcohol has caused a lot of heartaches to multitudes of people. Many babies have been born with deformities because their mothers drank alcohol when they were pregnant. Many innocent people have been killed by drunk drivers. Many families have been ruined by parents who became addicted to alcohol. Because alcohol is responsible for so much that is evil and sinful, my advice to Christians is to abstain from drinking it at all. John certainly didn’t record this miracle of Jesus changing water into watered-down wine for the purpose of encouraging Christians to drink modern alcoholic beverages. He recorded this miracle to prove that Jesus was the Son of God and to remind us of the wonderful salvation He’s provided for us!

Q. Did you notice that the wine Jesus made was described by the master of ceremonies as being better than the first wine that ran out? Does this teach us anything about God?

A. Perhaps it does. It shows us that when God does something, He does a quality job, and He wants us to enjoy the best He has to offer us. He has provided a wonderful salvation for us that includes loads of benefits for all eternity, not just a temporary fixer-upper salvation that puts a band-aid on our problem. He doesn’t want us to have mediocre families, but quality families, with truly loving relationships. Are you enjoying all the benefits of what God has to offer us?

Q. Does this miracle of Jesus’ changing water into wine teach us anything about God’s power?

A. Yes, it shows us that God can change anything into something else. If you believe in Jesus, He has changed you from a child of Satan into His own child. One day God will change your physical body into a brand new body that glows with His glory.

Application: Because of this first miracle, Jesus’ disciples believed in Him. For us, this miracle is one more proof that Jesus truly is the Son of God, and because we believe He is, we should trust and obey Him.

Yesterday we read what John wrote about Jesus being called “the Word.” A few verses later in his Gospel, John said, “the Word [who is Jesus] became human and lived here on earth among us” (John 1:14). John was talking about when the glorious God Jesus was transformed into a baby in Mary’s womb, lived there for nine months, was born, grew up, and lived for about 33 years on the earth as a human being. It was a really big miracle for God to become a man, but nothing is too hard for God!

It’s very important for us to understand that Jesus was a very special person. He was God transformed into a man. He wasn’t one-half human being and one-half God. He was 100% of both. That has not been the case with any other person who has ever lived. Jesus was one-of-a-kind! He wanted us to know that He was both human and divine, calling Himself the Son of God and the Son of Man.

Hundreds of years before Jesus became a man, God told Isaiah the prophet what He was planning to do. He promised that a special baby would be born through a woman who had never been married. People often have special names that they call their babies, such as “sweet pea,” “little guy” or “chubby cheeks.” But the special baby that God told Isaiah about would be called “Immanuel,” a name that means “God is with us” (Isaiah 7:14). That is what Jesus was. He was no longer the God in heaven—He was God living with us.

Through Isaiah, God the Father helped us understand how His Son, who had no beginning, would have a beginning as a human being. He promised, “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us” (Isaiah 9:6). It was a human being, a child , who was born in Bethlehem, but the Father’s Son was not born because He always existed. Thus, He was given .

Finally, notice Jesus was born to us and given to us . It was for us that He came because God loves us.

Q. Let’s pretend that you wanted to show the dogs in your neighborhood how much you loved them. What would you do? If you had the power, would you be willing to change yourself into a baby dog inside its mother, live there for nine months, be born as a puppy and live for 33 years as a dog when you could have been enjoying life as a human being? You would really have to love dogs to do that! Jesus becoming a man was a bigger step down than for us to become dogs. Does that give you an idea of how much Jesus loves us?

A. Yup!

Q. Are there any other major religions in the world besides Christianity that can truly say they were begun by a human being who was actually God?

A. Nope!

Application: Since Jesus is God, we should pay careful attention to what Jesus said and obey Him.