Living Water…

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:7-26 ESV)

Who actually asked for the drink here? Isn’t it interesting we spend all of our time talking about John 4 with the Samaritan woman about Jesus giving us living water, yet we forget that the whole conversation started by Jesus asking her for a drink!

Was he thirsty? Maybe, maybe not. Really doesn’t matter. The whole reason he asks for a drink is because he is sitting by a well and she is there. Perfect conversation starter. Doesn’t matter if he is actually thirsty, because the text is not about water any how…

It is not about water, or physical thirst, just like John chapter 6 is not about bread or physical hunger. We all know that no matter what we eat or drink, we will always be hungry or thirsty again. There is no magic water or food that will cause us to never be hungry again. If there was can you imagine the implications! There would never be undernourished people again, or would there (this is the topic for another blog… as it says you will never be thirsty or hungry, not that you won’t need food or water, we assume…) But John 4 and 6 are not about water and food…

They are about the living word, water and bread, that sustenance for our lives, not for physical needs but for all of our needs. Jesus wants us to be living in and with Him, to allow him to be the most important part of our life. And by doing this He will supply our needs, we will still be hungry and thirsty, we will still feel pain, and have troubles, but He will be with us and provide for us.

He will as he did for the woman at the well tell us our live’s story and give us details no one can possibly know, because he loves us that he came here to live among us and show us how to be in relationship with him and the father.

So allow him to give you the living water and live in those open and honest relationships with everyone! Because in doing that you will draw others to Jesus, and allow them to have the relationship that you have and feed them with living bread and water! The relationship of a lifetime!

Keep an eye…

Romans 16:17-20 (NRSV)

I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who cause dissensions and offenses, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them. For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded. For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise in what is good and guileless in what is evil. The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Keep an eye out for those who cause dissension and lead astray from the teaching you have learned. Avoid those who cause dissension… for soon the God of peace will crush Satan under foot.

Avoid those who cause dissension means though that those whom we disagree with can never hear our side of the story…

I agree we have to be aware of those who lead us and others astray, but avoiding those we disagree with.

But that is not what Paul is saying. Paul says to the Romans to avoid those who are deliberately stirring up trouble. Those who go out of their way to cause problems in your life. Keep an eye out for these people and avoid them. They will be crushed under foot when the God of peace comes.

In this way we will be wise in what is good. Be wise in Jesus and do not let anyone lead you away from where He has taught you and led you to go.

stand with God…

And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. (Acts 6:8-15 ESV)

Have you ever had someone or a group of someones come after you? Maybe because you were saying things or said you believed things that were different than them? In the above reading from Acts, Stephen is speaking of God, of Jesus and those who are members of the synagogue don’t like it because they do not believe him. The do not believe Jesus is the messiah and they think that Stephen should be silenced.

So when they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking they plotted against him and said he was speaking against God and Moses… Not a very nice thing to do. I’m sure someone has said that I was doing that to them at some point. We can not point fingers at our neighbors because it is not our place to judge another. Our’s is to stand in the gap with God and speak what he has asked us to do.

Most of us will never have to face what Stephen had to face (although some of us will think we have come really close!). Stephen was stoned to death for his belief in Jesus, and he stood in the gap. God asks you to stand in the gap and speak the truth even in the face of danger and possible stoning. God will be with you, so are you ready to stand with God?

Give by God…

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:35-40 ESV)

All that the Father gives Jesus will come to Him, and He will never cast any of what God gives Him out. And He has to do the will of the Father and that is to not lose anything that was given to Him.

But what has God given Him? And what is Jesus not losing?

Are we given by God to Jesus? I believe that I can not by my own will come to God. Yet do I have the power to say that I will not come to God, or I will not be given to Jesus?

Power is a big thing and we all think we have more than we do… We say we have control over our lives and that may be true, but do we have the power to not be given by God to Jesus? How big is grace and is it possible to not allow God to carry us to Jesus?

Yesterday I posted a blog called Carried… In it I discuss a little later in the 6th chapter of John where we are drawn by God to Jesus, and Martin Luther’s saying we can not come to God unless the Holy Spirit brings us. I believe God picks us up and carries us to the table, to the font, to everywhere we go that He or Jesus is involved. We can not by our own power come to God except that God help us come to Him. We as sinners can only come to the Holy if the Holy makes us clean. In the Roman Catholic understanding of this then, we can not come to the sacrament of confession unless God Himself carries us there! We can only come to the sacraments if carried by God. So there is never a time when we are not covered by God’s grace. We might be in need of forgiveness to understand fully the grace that covers us, but we are never not covered by God’s grace.

So are you given by God to Jesus… I can say for certain there is nothing in creation that is not covered by the grace of God. We may not understand the implications of this, but we have not far to go to find the arms of our God ready to carry us to places we do not deserve to go…

Allow God to give you to Jesus, and rest in His arms as He carries you to wonderful places!

Carried…

I had a conversation today with a dear friend and he asked during the conversation, “Is it possible for a sinner to go to a sacrament?” Now take for a moment that my friend use to be Catholic… It is a very profound question. My immediate answer was no. The bible tells us that the holy and the unholy can not mix. So the sinner who is unholy can not mix with the holy or the sacrament…

So then how does the sinner become holy? If not through the sacraments then how does one become able to stand in the presence of God.

I believe the answer comes through this past Sunday’s gospel text and Martin Luther’s explanation of the third article of the Apostle’s Creed and the below song by Leeland…

This past Sunday Jesus said to the crowd, that had become Jews in our reading that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:44 ESV) Here in this verse Jesus says that we are drawn to Jesus by God. I read before last weeks sermon that the connotation of this word was more of a dragging then a drawn. But my quick look into it is more of “to bid a thing to be carried to one”. Martin Luther tells us in his explanation of the third article of the creed, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith…” And Leeland tells us, that we are carried to the sacrament!

You see it is not by our works, or the fact we are even worthy, because we are not we are worthless sinners, but God still loves us and calls out to us! God loves us even in our filth and wants to use us to spread the love He has for us and the world.

So while as a sinner you can not come, God himself carries you to Jesus! He picks you up and brings you to the arms of the one who gave everything so you might be with Him!

God’s eyes

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
(2 Peter 3:14-18 ESV)

Let the patience of the Lord be your salvation! Jesus is patient that all should come to know who He is, that we all find our way back home. But how?

We are to be found without spot or blemish and at peace… Seems a pretty tall order. Considering it seems like everyday we are doing something to make us be spotty, or get another blemish and are we at peace? And that begs the question, by who’s understanding our we spotless, or blemish free, and who are we at peace with?

Is this Peter’s understanding? Because there was a time when Peter said that is a Greek was not circumcised that was a spot or a blemish. And there was little peace for a while among the disciples on this subject. Look at Acts to see the fighting that went on about those who are not Jews, and how they can become Christians.

I think one of the most powerful people in your life would have something to say about this. That person is you. Others will say how good you are and the wonderful things you have done, but you know all of your past. You know all of your wrongs.

Are you at peace with yourself? We often fight with ourselves and can’t see beyond our own faults and failings to do anything different then we always have. God came and paid the price though, and loves us as we are and frees us to do wonderful things.

I was watching the Prince of Egypt last night and there is a seen where Jethro says that Moses is there honored guest. Moses says he has done nothing worthy of honor, yet he has freed Jethro’s daughter from Egypt and has saved his other daughters from bandits. It is all in how we see it, and according to Jethro we have to look at our lives through heavens eyes. We have to see us through God’s eyes…

So look at your life through the eyes of God and allow Him to work in and through you to do wonderful things. Knowing that He has paid for the cleaning to make you spotless and without blemish and He has a peace for you, so that you may learn more about Him, and receive an abundance of grace that you can go and share with others.

So look at your life through God’s eyes!

Listen to God…

“But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me.
So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
to follow their own counsels.
Oh, that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
I would soon subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes.
Those who hate the LORD would cringe toward him,
and their fate would last forever.
But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
(Psalm 81:11-16 ESV)

We will be ok, if we can only listen to God. Pharaoh’s heart was hardened by God and did what he did because God was using him. We all can be in God’s good graces if we only listen to Him. and we all know how easy that it!

How easy is it to listen to God?

When you aren’t sure what His voice sounds like? Is that me or is that God? The sound of a thought passing through your mind that seems like something foreign to you, could it be God, or the devil leading you astray?

Or does God speak to us through the community of gathered believers we worship with? Well that would be only if God is speaking to them. And they have not been lead astray as the above psalm tells us.

How do you know if you are listening to the Lord? It is not easy, and if everything you are doing seems to be something you have done before and it doesn’t push your thoughts or imagination or your faith, you may not be hearing God right, but you may… God speaks in many and various ways. We have to be listening to hear Him and ready and able to follow when He calls and leads us.

It is enough

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. (1 Kings 19:4-8 ESV)

It is enough, please take my life! I know exactly how Elijah feels. Elijah is distraught and is running for his life because Jezebel has said he is to be killed. Elijah sits down beneath a tree and asks God to take him to be with his ancestors.

I got it. I really do. Waiting for the community where God is calling me. Watching my family wonder and suffer as I try to figure out where we need to be. Wondering if it will ever happen. I wander as I wonder what will happen next. Elijah just came down from a high of defeating the prophets of Baal when God rained down fire from heaven and causing Elijah’s pile of wood to catch fire. Now he is running and asking for death. He has trouble seeing the full picture just as we do. We wonder what awaits because of our discontent with our current situations.

But just like Elijah, God is providing for us. And just as God will appear to Elijah in the still small voice, He will show each of us the wonders of the abundant life he has for us. Just rest in His hands and live in His care. He will supply our every need if we will only just trust that He will…

Music of God

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the LORD;
let the humble hear and be glad.
Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt his name together!
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
(Psalm 34:1-8 ESV)

Can you identify with this psalm? I might be much like a song from your youth that brings about certain thoughts or feelings when you read it.

Music is powerful and draws us to places we once remembered or places inside of our selves where we go away to hide. When you hear, “Welcome to the Hotel California…” what do you think? Or how about “When the lights go down in the city…” Or maybe “amazing grace how sweet the sound…”

Can you identify with the lines of the psalm? “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.” We have all cried to the Lord in our troubles in our wanting… We are all blessed when we take refuge in Him. Read the psalm and remember that this was a song of David, or someone else who wrote it. It is a way to be drawn to a place where God will give you shelter, and protect you. God will deliver you from all of your worries if you will let Him. Draw near to Him and live in the life He will give you.

Prodigal God by Timothy Keller ~ Book Review

Timothy Keller does a supurb job of unlocking the understanding of the Christian faith through his look at a well known parable of Jesus.

The Prodigal God looks at the parable told by Jesus in Chapter 15 of the gospel according to Luke.  It is a wonderful story that I have read many books on and studied to find new insights and to see from new angles and Timothy Keller opened up Pandora’s box with his revelations on the parable that begins, “There was a father who had two sons…”

Most of us know this story as the story of the Prodigal son. But I have always entitled it the story of the Loving Father. But Timothy Keller calls it the story of the Two Lost Sons. You see as is pointed out in the book, prodigal does not mean wayward but it means “recklessly spendthrift.” The prodigal part really is a statement about God, and Timothy helps us see that. He also unpacks the parable and helps us see how most of us who are in the church are probably older brothers and are just as lost as the younger brother.

Through this book Timothy helps us see just how extravagant God is with his grace, to what lengths He has gone to seek us out, and then how far He is willing to go to bring us back if we stray from Him. This book is a must read for anyone who claims to understand the Christian faith, as it will help us see how much we are the problem and how we might be better followers of Jesus.

Timothy Keller brings to life the parable of the Two Lost Sons and through it helps the heart of our Christian faith shine.