It Has To Be You

John 4:31-54

“It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” John 4:42

This is pretty much the way it works. People, believing in Jesus for themselves.

I was reading an article last week about a man who was “born Christian”. I never really understand what that is supposed to mean. I know it’s possible for Christians to have children. I know that it is possible to be born into a family where both parents believe in Jesus. I know that Christian parents generally do what they can to teach their children about God and stuff. Being “born Christian”, that is weird.

Among the many foundational things about being a Christ-ian, personal belief is one of the nonnegotiables. Following Jesus isn’t a subject to be taught and memorized. He isn’t inherited through genetics by some kind of faith gene. You actually have to believe, for yourself, in Him.

The kind of faith we see here among the townspeople is much more than intellectual assent. I believe Adolf Hitler was a person. I do not however believe in him. Believing in this Biblical sense comes to a place where the believer knows Him to be real enough to have a relationship with. Having that, we recognize His work in the world today. Belief carries with it a level of trust, whereby we actually act on His word.

Believing does not have to do with subscribing to an ancient form of philosophy or ideology. From the outside looking in, I do understand how it can appear that way. We do seem to have a different attitude towards things like the sanctity of life, human sexuality and getting drunk on the weekend. Even these come, not from memorizing a moral code of conduct. We read our Bible and find that it is not an irrelevant book, but it speaks quite clearly about the real matters of life in the here and now. Genuine belief spills over from the mind, affecting the lives we live. It does so because of its legitimacy. Real faith affects our actions. Anything else is a fraud.

As I speak of Christians, many of you identify yourselves among the ‘we’. Others of you see them as the ‘they’. I’m writing primarily to those of you who consider them to be the ‘they’. Becoming one of them is often considered to be a negative thing. A good friend of mine was married to a woman who became a Christian, and when she told him his response was kind of cute, “That’s great dear. They got ya!”

Maybe you know people like this Samaritan woman and they want to tell you about Jesus. It can be annoying, I know. Yet be encouraged. This isn’t a thing that can be forced on you. Nobody can make you be one of us. If you don’t want to talk about it, just tell the person you don’t want to talk about it. If they are a decent human being, they’ll respect that.

But you’re here, reading about Jesus for yourself in the book of John. Forget me. Forget the woman. What do you think of Jesus? What do you see in Him?