Wed.’s Devo - The Lamb of God Revealed

Read: Judges 13:1-14:20; John 1:29-51: Psalm 102:1-28; Proverbs 14:15-16
Today we read the story of the beginning of Samson. I can’t help but see the similarities in the birth of John the Baptist. An angel proclaimed that these barren women would have a son and he would be a Nazarite from the womb. Samson was to deliver Israel from the Philistines and John was to prepare the way of the Lord.
Samson needed some prodding to fulfill his destiny so God used a Philistine woman to get him mad enough to fight the Philistines. Samson fell for a Philistine woman and wanted to marry her. Samson proposed a riddle with a price attached. His Philistine wedding attendants were to figure it out or pay with fine expensive clothing. When they couldn’t answer it on the seventh day, they threatened his bride with her life and the life of her family. She enticed Samson into telling her and she told the men. Samson knew what had happened when they came with the answer. He went and killed 30 of their men and gave their clothes to the wedding party. Then he went home enraged. They gave his wife to Samson’s best man.
Nothing in this story is right. No one acted out of wisdom but that was the way of the times. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes and not in God’s.
In John, we see John pointing out Jesus to his disciples. He tells them that Jesus is the lamb of God, the one he had told them would come to take away the sin of the world. He reminisces over seeing the Spirit come like a dove and remaining on Jesus when he was baptized. God had told John that that would be a sign of the Messiah.
Andrew was one of John’s disciples but when he heard what John said, he ran and got his brother Simon Peter and told him that he had found the Messiah. They became Jesus first two disciples. Jesus went and found Andrew, a man also from Bethsaida and told him to become his disciple. Andrew ran and found Nathaniel who had been awaiting the coming of the Messiah. Nathaniel had a hard time thinking the Messiah would come from Nazareth, especially since the prophets said he would come from Bethlehem. Little did they know, he did. Sometimes Jesus hid the truth so they would act out of faith instead of facts. He does that in our lives too. He knows the future and exactly how he has worked everything out but instead of giving us the blueprint, he asks us to walk by faith.
When Jesus told Nathaniel that he saw him under the fig tree, he was revealing Nathaniel’s heart. Rabbinical students would pray under the fig tree. They believed that prayer was not real prayer unless you were praying for the return of the Messiah. So Nathaniel must have gotten interrupted by Andrew while he was praying for the Messiah. This also tells me that Nathaniel must have been studying for the priesthood. God saw his desire to see the Messiah come and took him straight to the Messiah. When Jesus said this to Nathaniel he was instantly changed. He went from skepticism to total faith.
Lord, I am so grateful that you remain the same. You still call us by name and love us as a father. Thank you for your lovingkindness. Help us to give that lovingkindness to others today.