The Grasp of Sin

John 4: 28-42

What is the natural thing that most people do when a life-changing event happens to them; they go and tell someone else about it, and in that respect the woman from Samaria is just like us.  Jesus’ disciples have returned from buying food and the woman leaves her water pot and goes into the city and says to the men, could it be that the women of the town would not have anything to do with her, so she addresses the men.  “Come see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?”  We are told the men left the city and went out to see him, and meanwhile the disciples were trying to get Jesus to eat some of the food they had bought.  Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  (Verse 32)  The disciples were wondering who had brought Jesus food, and knowing all things Jesus said to them; “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” (Verse 34)  Once more many of us will identify with the disciples and not Jesus, we want to be filled with food but Jesus’ source was not from a “Big Mac” or food store, but from His Father.  And once more Jesus goes from the unimportant to the important, “Do not say, ‘There are yet four months and then comes the harvest’?  Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.” (Verse 35) 

It was only moments later that the disciples understood the statement that Jesus had spoken to them; “From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.”  So the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days.   Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Can you identify with this account of the Samaritan woman and her encounter with the Lord?  You and I may not have had five husbands or wives, we may not have been living in adultery, but each of us was in the grasp of sin when we first encountered Jesus.  Jesus should have had a profound effect on us when we encountered him, a life changing result, one that we would have told others about.  The end results should be that others, like the people in this town in Samaria, would also come to know Jesus.  It is a wise person who looks deep into them to make sure they are not just religious but to know they have entered into a relationship with Jesus the Christ.  We are told often in the Scriptures to examine ourselves, one such place is 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? — Unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice