Reading for July 17: John 4:48-54

48 Then Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe."
49 The nobleman said to Him, "Sir, come down before my child dies!"
50 Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your son lives." So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. 51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, "Your son lives!"
52 Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him." 53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, "Your son lives." And he himself believed, and his whole household.
54 This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.

Comments:

Here we see the Grace of Jesus. Despite the nobleman's faithlessness, Jesus heals the boy as requested by the father. Initially the father thought that Jesus was limited somehow by physical separation. Then something happened, Jesus told him to "Go your way; your son lives" and the man believed Him. There was a miraculous change in the man, a change that produced faith. Through this new faith the man was able to believe that Jesus was who He said He was and would do what He said He would do without prior physical evidence.

In the end, the man's faith was rewarded (not that the faith was from him but a gift to him). Not only was his son saved, but then his whole family came to know Jesus to.