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April 12/John 4

Posted on April 11, 2016

Yesterday we saw a moral man come to Jesus in the cool of the night and Jesus told him he needed to be born again. Today we meet an immoral woman who met Jesus in the heat of the day and Jesus’ message is still the same; you must be born again, although he didn’t use those words. Different people, different backgrounds, different circumstances, same message just packaged in a little different way. Jesus had the Holy Spirit remaining on him and because the Spirit is an expert in everything he guided Jesus in the way to speak to these two individuals.

This is one reason why having fellowship with the Holy Spirit is so important. The message of being born again never changes but the Holy Spirit knows the heart of each person and how they need to hear the message. Ask him to help you each day to have the right words when you are in conversation with people.

Luke 4:18–19 (NLT) — 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, 19 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

Verses 1-3 > Here the Holy Spirit leads Jesus away from confrontation with the Pharisees. When the Pharisees heard that Jesus was supposedly baptizing more disciples than John the Baptist you can bet that they were now going to zero in on Jesus. This wasn’t the time for confrontation there was a women who would listen to the message and she would become born again and the Holy Spirit knew it. Once you discern that all a person wants to do is argue with you about faith in Jesus it is time to move on. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to someone whose heart is ready to listen.

Verse 4 > Israel is divided into three regions: Judea in the south, Galilee in the north, and Samaria in the middle. When a Jew wanted to go from Judea to Galilee, the most direct route led through Samaria. But good Jews would never go that way. They would go through Perea on the other side of the Jordan River. Why? Because there was such tension between the Samaritans and the Jews, that Jews uttered the word “Samaritan” only as a curse word. Why were the Samaritans so despised? In the year 722 B.C., the Assyrians invaded Israel from the north and carried the majority of the people from the ten northern tribes into captivity. The Assyrians then sent some of their people to Israel, where they intermarried with the Jews not taken into captivity. The marriages that took place between the Assyrians and the Jews produced the Samaritans—half-breeds in the eyes of the Jews. Barred from the temple, the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim. Although they still believed in the Pentateuch—the first five books of Moses—they changed the stories. The Garden of Eden was on Mount Gerizim. Noah’s ark landed on Mount Gerizim. And Abraham offered Isaac—you guessed it—on Mount Gerizim.

Courson, J. (2003). Jon Courson’s Application Commentary (pp. 464–465). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.
This meeting with the woman was a case of Jesus coming to his own, the Jews, but they didn’t receive him so he goes to an outcast of Jewish society and she receives him. In God’s eyes we are all outcasts until we receive Jesus. Everybody is in the same ‘outcast boat’ until Jesus rescues them. Again we never know who will receive Jesus so we throw our net into the boat so to speak and see what we can pull out. In other words talk to everybody because you don’t know who may receive your message about Jesus. I would have put this women in the category with my buddy Al, “Least likely to be born again”. But O how wrong I would have been!
Verse 6 > If you ever wondered if Jesus was human this verse proves it. He was hot, tired and thirsty!
Verse 10 > Jesus had such a precious gift for her; the gift of the forgiveness of sins! Maybe if we looked at telling people about Jesus as giving them a wonderful gift we would tell more people. I have just spent a few weeks talking about forgiveness; forgiving others and forgiving yourself. If you haven’t done it already give that gift of forgiveness to someone or some business you have been holding a grudge against and then turn around and give that gift to yourself. It will be like a cold drink of water on a hot day! Why do I say that? The woman came to the well for water but when she met Jesus and realized he was the Messiah she forgot all about being thirsty and left the water jug and went to tell people what she had just experienced! Isn’t that what witnessing is all about? Just tell people of your experience with Jesus.
One immoral woman got all of her questions answered by Jesus. He was very patient with her. She also got born again even though those words weren’t used. She told the people in her town and they came out and got born again. We know this because they said, “We believe he is the Savior of the World.” The Holy Spirit was definitely at work here. It is hard for me to believe that a woman of her reputation would have even been listened to much less believed without the working of the Holy Spirit. Most bible scholars believe she was at the well in the heat of the day because it was a time when nobody else would be there; so she wouldn’t have to face the whispering and the pointing of fingers.
This whole revival started because Jesus didn’t want to get into confrontation with the Pharisees and he wasn’t afraid of going through Galilee. Religious guys who wouldn’t listen anyway. The Holy Spirit knows where to send us to speak about Jesus. It also happened when Jesus was hot, tired and worn out. So don’t go by how feel jsut just have fellowship with the Holy Spirit and let him lead you and ask him for the right words to speak; who knows what will happen. The woman forgot that she was thirsty and you might forget that you are afraid and a little nervous!
People need to hear about our Jesus and we Hilltoppers are the people to tell them!
Be filled with the Holy Spirit and Be Inspired Hilltop!
Filed Under: Inspire

Comments

  1. Mark Gundersen says
    April 12, 2016 at 6:17 am

    When Jesus got to Gallali he expected the unbelief he had seen before. The father just wanted his son healed and was not dissuaded by Jesus’s dimissive words. His faith led to his son being healed. Come to Jesus with faith and good things happen.

  2. Nancy Symens says
    April 12, 2016 at 6:43 am

    Verses 31-34, His desciples encouraged Jesus to eat the food that they just went and bought. Jesus turned them down. He feasted on something better..Kingdom feast. Jesus feasted upon the devotion of His bride. The Samaritan woman was saved…what a harvest for the Kingdom. Not just her, but the entire city was saved. Jesus feasts upon the devotion of His bride (that’s you and me) …and we feast upon Jesus, the Living Water. Pretty cool.