Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Well

We need to stop giving people excuses not to believe in God. You've probably heard the expression 'I believe in God, just not organized religion'. I don't think people would say that if the church truly lived like we are called to live.” ― Francis Chan

I just started reading The Well: Why are so many thirsty by Mark Hall, (Thank you Melanie Stubbs.)  I'm only on page 27, I am such a slow reader, I have yet to get through a page without crying, which also slows me down a bit. :)

It begins by talking about the Woman at the Well.


My heart has been still before the Lord over the last few days. I feel weird not writing lately but this is where my heart is resting. In the Challenge and in the story of the Woman at the Well.  I have the entire passage right here. The entire Word of GOD is like medicine to the heart! So if you would take off your wisdom gained from years in church or if this is your first time reading it, put down your to-do list's and I ask you to read it fresh with me, with no preconceived notions or in a hurry.
May GOD speak loudly to your heart through this passage!

John 4:1-42
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.  And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

 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."
 
 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you seek?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" They went out of the town and were coming to him.
 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?"
 
Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say,
'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.
Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."
 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, "He told me all that I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of HIS word. They said to the woman,
"It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and
we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world."


Every word written in John chapter 4 leaps off that page and is like fire to my soul. Oh, LORD that YOU would fill me with YOUR Well. That my life will draw thirsty souls to YOU! May Your presence in my life be so loud that YOUR Holy Spirit draws the thirsty to the Well!
Here I am LORD send, me! Not my will though Lord, but YOURS be done.

 Lord, I want that to be me! Lord, fill me with YOUR Holy Well. May others see You pouring so loudly from my life that thirsty souls will feel you through me. Lord remove me from my grasp. God may YOUR Well pour out of my life.








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2 comments:

  1. There is something great that happens when the Holy Spirit gets involved in our daily reading! It does become alive! I have had similar experiences this week as well! "God, may Your Well flow out of my life!" Great post!

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  2. Thank you for sharing. I love reading that passage

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