How thirsty is your soul for God’s presence? Do you desire for more of God’s living water? Longing to feel the presence of God in a more powerful way should be all of our desires. God wants us to want to be in his presence. He longs for us to quietly commune with him.
Psalm 42:1-2 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
True worship is about a heart connection to God. You can sing, pray, praise, lift your hands, kneel, lay flat on your face, it is all about the heart posture. God wants to be first in our lives, there is no room before him or above him. But in our human capacity, we have to fight constantly to make him our number one thought, care and priority.
Matthew 16:24 –Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Total surrender is what he longs for from us. Jesus emphasized surrender by denying ourselves the things we would do or want to do, to follow Jesus. He desires our complete surrender to his will.
1 Peter 5:7 –Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Surrender means trusting him with our cares and burdens. We must come to him as a little child. Think about how trusting they are with their parents. They will believe whatever they tell them. We should also trust God with that childlike trust. He wants only good things for us, he will look out for us.
As the weekend approaches and hopefully we all find a little bit of time, think about the question I asked when we started today, How thirsty is your soul for God’s presence?
THE TITLE FOR TODAY’S EPISODE: A “WELL” PLANNED MOMENT
God has appointed times and moments that divine intervention is necessary. God is the master of perfect timing. He knows the heart of a person and what they need at any given moment. I can think of many times that God has showed up and surprised me with just the right verse, song or his still small voice that gave me the encouragement I needed.
Today I want to talk to you about a meeting at a well. Jesus is all about well-planned moments. But when he met the Samaritan woman at a well in the middle of the day it was perfect timing. I am sure it made her nervous to be seen with Jesus. The custom of that day was that a man and a woman couldn’t be alone together without a chaperone unless they were related or married. Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along very well so there was tension there also.
What would the people of the village have said to Jesus about this woman? What type of things would they have spewed with judgment about her? They would have surely warned him that being seen with her would ruin his reputation. If anyone would have warned him, he wouldn’t have listened. He was there not to be affected by her. He was there to change her life.
She had a reputation and the other women treated her badly. Giving her looks and talking about her. Normally the woman of the house would gather water early, at day break before it got hot. But this woman came in the middle of the day to avoid the looks and comments.
Jesus told her at one point to go get her husband and come back and he would explain to her how he could give her living water. She said she didn’t have a husband. Jesus said to her that she was telling the truth because she had been married five times and the one she was currently living with was not her husband.
Jesus knew her pain and rejection. He understood the dry well of her soul that desperately needed to be filled with living water. The word doesn’t say the reason for her many marriages. Did her husband’s die or reject her and throw her out of the house to make it the best way she could. But with that many failed attempts at marriage she had a lot of emotional scars. Marriage then was different than today. Women’s survival depended on their husband or father. Even a widow needed provision left by her husband. Jesus understood the deep reasons for her choices and was there to show her a better way.
He revealed to her that he was the messiah, she was so excited she ran to the village and told everyone, come see a man that told me everything I ever done. In all of her relationships she was missing something. Her soul longed for acceptance and to be loved. Jesus’ act of compassion changed her for the rest of her life. That was a well-planned moment.
What well are you drawing at, a well of never being satisfied? A well of self-doubt, fear or anxiety? Does your life currently have some rough edges that others judge you for even today?
Come see a man that has living water. You can draw from his well of salvation, grace and love.
We must meet people where they are and pray that God gives us the right words to say that will change their lives and future. If we pray every day for a well-planned moment, God will open doors of opportunity for us to share the story of a man that has living water. A man that can change their lives. We just need to be excited enough about what he has done for us that we are like the Samaritan woman. Willing to run and tell everyone about a man called Jesus.
What happens to water when it gets pooled or doesn’t flow? It becomes full of bacteria, it becomes stagnant. In this stagnant state, it begins to stink because of all the rotting plants and other rotting things that are in it. This is what happens to Christians too often. It is easy to fall into a routine and not flow in the spirit of God. We stop praying as much as we should. We get out of the will of God and grow cold or become stagnate.
All the dead things that have built up while we are in a rut and become stagnant. When the living water starts flowing, everything changes for the better. In the stream of the spirit of God, we get unstuck.
God’s living water is pure. It keeps us from becoming spiritually dehydrated. It is a fact that if we become dehydrated we cannot function. Severe dehydration will eventually kill someone. We cannot allow the enemy to keep us from the flow of God’s Spirit until we are dehydrated.
Pure water contains no contaminants. Dead leaves provide a place for disease to take hold and grow. In order to have pure water again, the dead leaves and rot have to be removed. We cannot grow spiritually if we have dead leaves. We have to remove all the dead things so that we can grow new leaves.
In the spirit, we need to be prepared and filter the things of the world with the word of God so that things do not get dammed up and become stagnant. The word guards our minds and lives.
Filter out what is not of God. Otherwise, it can contaminate your source of pure water.
This reminds me of the story of Issac in Genesis Chapter 26. I suggest you read the whole chapter.
Gen 26:15-20 For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth.16 And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we. 17 And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. 18 And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them. 19 And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water. 20 And the herdmen of Gerar did strive with Isaac’s herdmen, saying, The water is ours: and he called the name of the well Esek; because they strove with him.
He dug the wells that his father had dug. The enemy had filled it up with dirt after Abraham died. He got the water to flow again, and then the enemy came and strove with him over the well.
Every time we get things going and flowing, you can be sure the enemy will come along and try to cause issues.
This happened a second time to Issac, he cleaned out a well and got it flowing. The enemy came along, and he walked away. Then the third time, the enemy did not strive with him. God promised him that he would be fruitful and multiply.
The third well was called Rehboth which means, “For now the Lord has made room for us and we shall be fruitful.”
In this story, I can see the church of today. Some have wells that are stopped up and need to be dug out. Other have wells that the enemy is fighting for, only God can say if you are to walk away from that well or if it is where you need to be. But the Lord has made room for us all. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.
We will never be able to gather the harvest of souls without living water. We don’t want to be found at the well of strife and contention. We don’t want to be found at a stagnate well of fear and regret. Other wells of sin and heartache, complacency and procrastination. We want to be at the well of free-flowing water.
I live near an artesian well. For those of you who do not know what that is, it is a place where water freely flows out of the ground and has been fixed with a pipe. The water is under pressure from the rock structure underground. There is water flowing out of it even in the dryest of weather conditions. People come from all around the area to carry water when their wells are dry.
God’s living water should be like that of the artesian well. There should be so much pressure that we have to let it flow.
John 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
When we allow God’s living water to flow freely in our lives, we will be able to share Jesus with those who are thirsty. They will never thirst again.
GOD FOCUS--Psalm 34:3 O magnify the Lord with me.... 