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Thoughts of a saint and slave
by Sam Isaacson
Here we encounter Jesus doing something miraculous and wonderful. Upon meeting Nathaniel Jesus exclaimed 'Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!' As complimentary and generic as this may seem it must have hit a chord with Nathaniel, because he immediately asked 'How do you know me?' Jesus answered him, 'Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.' Jesus here is demonstrating one aspect of the fact that he is God; he knows things that the rest of us don't! Jesus' words make it clear that his knowledge of Nathaniel were not a guess, but something deeper.
Jesus knows more than we do
Firstly, Jesus said he saw Nathaniel before Philip called him. In other words, before Philip had gone to Nathaniel Jesus had already seen what would happen. It is difficult to fully grasp but it is important to acknowledge that Jesus' knowledge surpasses anything we can imagine. He knows everything about us, everything that has happened to us, everything we are currently experiencing and everything that will happen to us. He knows who we will meet, what we will think and what we will do!
Jesus knows everything
The second surprising aspect of Jesus' words is his mention of the specific detail of the fig tree. The truth is that Jesus has a knowledge of parts of our life that nobody else knows. There is a chance that Nathaniel had not registered at the time, 'oh look, I'm sitting under a fig tree' but Jesus could see. Even parts of our lives that we are not fully aware of are known by Jesus, in the greatest detail. This means that Jesus knows exactly where we are, exactly what we are doing, exactly what we are thinking. We cannot hide our thoughts and actions from Jesus!
Our response
In recognising this there must be two responses. The first is one of comfort; Jesus knows everything we are going through - when we are having a tough time Jesus has seen everything, and can see it perfectly from our perspective. When we pray he knows exactly what we are thinking, and knows what is going to happen so knows how best to respond! He will always do what's best for us because he knows what will happen, and what our true thoughts are, regardless of our messy words; here's the first challenge: pray about everything, because Jesus is the best one to ask.
The second response is one which may make us a little uncomfortable. If Jesus can see everything, and he can, then he knows all the bad stuff we've done, thought, and said. He knows stuff that no-one else but us knows! This should give us a healthy fear of the Lord in that we can't hide anything from Him that will make Him angry, but more than that should spur us on to live our lives more for Him than anything else. The real challenge, however, is if we take this to its logical conclusion. No matter how hard we try to please God we can know for sure that there could be a better way of doing it, and guess what? Jesus knows that because he knows everything! We therefore need to recognise God's grace because He rewards us anyway, despite the fact that we are foolish! Let's ask God for more wisdom and grace in our lives to live more for the glory of the living God.
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