Friday, August 27, 2010

If you Only Knew Who You Were Speaking To!

Key Verse: Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." (John 4:10, NIV)

Today’s Passage: John 4:1-24 (NIV)
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
1The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.


The Divine Rest Stop 4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

Breaking Cultural Norms 9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Living Water

10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"
13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

The Revelation 16He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." 17"I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
19"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

True Worship 21Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

Jesus is the Messiah "25The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

Fred's Commentary: Have you ever met a very important person but at the time, had no idea who you were talking to? Maybe you misjudged them or put them off or ignored them. When you discovered who they were, your whole attitude changed. You might have even said, “I'm sorry, I didn't know who you were!”
Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well was not really about his thirst for water. It was really an opportunity for him to offer this woman the living water of eternal life! Initially she had no clue who she was talking to. She didn’t know she was talking to the Messiah! In fact the cultural norms of the day dictated that they would not even be speaking to each other at all! (He was a Jew, she was a Samaritan. He was man, she was a woman). Yet, he disregarded cultural norms and engaged her in a conversation about water. He said "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water". When Jesus began to reveal things about her life, she knew that she was dealing with no ordinary man! She soon learned that she was face to face with the Christ, the Messiah: Jesus told her: "I who speak to you am He!" He was not offering her physical water. He was offering her eternal life.”
Then that had a conversation about the proper place to worship. (The woman said "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."Jesus assured her that true worship is not about the place but more about having the right attitude and the right information. True worshipers are those who worship God in spirit (the right motivation and heart attitude) and in truth (according to the truth about God as found in his Word.)


Personal Application
As a follower of Christ you are no ordinary person. You carry in your heart and soul Jesus Christ, the Savior. That sets you apart and gives you a special responsibility. You are an ambassador of Christ. He expects us to share the good news of the Kingdom with the thirsty people around us. They are trying to quench their thirst will all kinds of worldly pleasures but their spiritual throats remain parched! They can only be satisfied by an encounter with Jesus by accepting Him as Lord and Savior!

Let’s Pray: Father, thank you for quenching my thirst by giving me eternal life. Now help me live my life in such a way that thirsty sinners will ask for the living water that I have. Make me a bold witness, approaching people I don’t normally approach and speaking up in ways I don’t usually speak up in order to offer the living water to people.
In Jesus Name! Amen.

To watch an interesting contemporary skit, go on this passage, go to
http://www.urbana09.org/videos.cfm
Scroll down to Day 5 and click on "The Landromat" The next video is a message on the same passage of scripture.

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