What does it take for you to believe something? Do you need to hear it from a good, or perhaps a great, teacher? Do you need to see it to believe it? What if you were told by someone you did not know? What if it were a person you deem to be less than respectable?
In our hardened, callous, and skeptical world, we find it hard to believe anyone we do not know. It is also hard for us to believe people who do not have good reputations. We either discard the news or we attempt to verify it via a respectable source.
We might find that we miss a very important fact by disbelieving. That is not to say we should believe everything we hear. But we might discover we should believe something we hear from a less than respectable person when the testimony is about something that just couldn’t be made up.
Let’s take a look at what happened in the town of Sychar in Samaria. The less than respectable woman who came running and shouting at the people in town about the Messiah had a message that could not be made up. She was shouting that the person whose arrival they had been waiting for generations had arrived, and He was at their well! You can’t make that up. You don’t joke about it. You don’t tease people about it. And she didn’t.
Many of the people believed her message, as incredulous as it was. The few that didn’t, did after they heard Him speak. Believing an incredulous message such as this is the most important thing we can do in our lives. It determines where we will spend eternity.
We may think we are not respectable enough to tell people about Jesus. Or we may think the person telling us about Him is not respectable and don’t want to believe them. Regardless, we should be telling people about Him and be willing to believe others who tell us about Him. It can make all the difference in our lives.
I pray we all believe the incredulous story of Jesus. I pray we believe He is the Son of God. I pray each one of us tell someone else about Jesus and convince them they should believe us. Believe Jesus’ story. Tell others about Him. Weigh the importance of the message. Trust in Jesus.
John 4:39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.”
Marty Pressey 