What was your Decision?

John 4:11-26

It was the sixth hour when Jesus showed up at Jacob’s well, it is not the time most people come to get water, but a Samaritan woman who was an outcast because she had five husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband also came at that hour.   Jesus ask for a drink, and we know she questioned why he would ask a woman from Samaria for water, and Jesus said to her, if she would have ask He would have given her living water.  Now this is the exchange between Jesus and this woman from Samaria: “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 thirst.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 

If you were part of this conversation, if this offer had been extended to you, how would you have answered Jesus?  As I was reading, my thoughts were Lord, I want that living water, a spring of living water welling up in me to eternal life.  And guess what that’s precisely what the Samaria woman said: “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.”   She was not that different from you and me, she wanted the living water, she wanted to quit being the object of shame, coming to the well at an hour when the other women of the town were not there, but she did not want to change, she did not want to confront her sinful life style.  One big problem, this water is not offered on those terms.  “Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband, and come here.”  The woman answered him, “Sir 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.” 

If you were confronted in this manner how would you respond?  I believe much like the Samaritan woman did; “The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. (Listen to her reply she is looking for a loophole.)  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”  Is she not saying my religion is working just fine, and I do not have to go to the temple in Jerusalem, it is much like many in the Baptist church, I’m a member, my parents and grandparents were members, why do we have to have a personal relationship with Jesus? 

I hope you have read this far, because Jesus has included you and me in this conversation.  “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.”  The woman of Samaria and you and I all have one thing in common, we have a decision to believe or not believe the words of Jesus, your action will having everything to do with whether you receive this offer of living water.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice