Bible Stories for the Young
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Jesus wanted to go to a town called Galilee. Before He left, He found Philip and said, “Hey! Follow Me.”
Philip dropped everything and followed after Jesus.
As Philip was following Jesus, he thought, “I have to find Nathanael and tell him I’ve found Jesus and am following Him. We’ve often talked about the Coming of the Rescuer, the Messiah. He will want to know!”
Philip looked left. He looked right. Where was Nathanael? Left. Right. Left. Right. Philip searched as he walked along with Jesus. Then he saw him.
Philip called out, “Hey Nathanael, we’ve found the one Moses and the prophets wrote about — Jesus of Nazareth.”
Nathanael replied with a smile, “What?! Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Nazareth wasn’t known for having anything good.)
Philip laughed, “Come and see.”
Jesus saw Nathanael coming and said excitedly, “Look at this guy! He is a true Israelite! There is nothing fake or false about him. He’s completely true and honest… he hides nothing. Nothing tricksy about him.”
Is that something Jesus could say about you? It can be. Nathanael was not a pretender. Of course pretending you are a dino or a kitty cat is not what we’re talking about. We are saying that Nathanael didn’t pretend he was someone he wasn’t. That meant he didn’t hide things he was thinking. He was honest. He didn’t say one thing with his mouth while his mind was thinking something different. That would have been pretending to be something that he wasn’t. That would be called hypocrisy, and Jesus really hates hypocrisy. But, everything about Nathanael was true, true, true. No secrets. And, that is what made Jesus happy and excited.
Nathanael was surprised and asked Jesus, “How do You know me?”
Jesus answered, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
“What?” Nathanael thought, “How did Jesus know I was under the fig tree? He couldn’t have seen me!” Then Nathanael burst out, “Teacher, You really are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Jesus said to him, “Do you believe in Me just because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? Ohhh, you will see greater, greater, greater things than these.”
Hmmmm. What great things do you think Jesus was talking about? Healing the sick? Making blind men see? Feeding thousands of people with just a little basket of food? There were so many GREAT things Jesus was about to do. But, listen to what Jesus tells them they will see.
Jesus continued, “You will see Heaven opened and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man.”
He doesn’t tell them about all the amazing things they are about to see with their earth-eyes (and they were going to see plenty of amazing things). He tells them what to watch for with their Heaven-Eyes.
Then Nathanael, the true, true, true Israelite, followed Jesus.
