John 4: 5-42 tells the story of what happened when Jesus met the woman at the well. You know the story, noontime in Samaria, the disciples have gone to town to get food, Jesus is waiting by the well, and here comes a woman to get water. It was a telling visit. Jesus says, “Give me a drink of water.” The woman says, “You are a Jewish man; I am a Samaritan woman; why are you even talking to me?” Jesus, “If you knew who I was, you’d ask me, and I’d give you living water.” If you’re not familiar already, please read the “rest of the story”.
This story ends up being about discipleship. Discipleship is about service; service is about sacrifice; no sacrifice, no service, no service, no discipleship. Service is about sharing what God puts in your heart, like in John 4. The woman at the well was changed utterly from hearing Jesus tell her the truth about herself, and she was set free (as in: ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ (John 8:31-36) Freed, miraculously, from guilt and shame and fear, she couldn’t help but tell what she had seen and heard. (see Acts 4:18-20)
Our job as disciples of Jesus, if we choose to accept it, is to ”1 make disciples, 2 baptize them, and 3 teach them to observe what I [Jesus] have commanded you . . .” Matt. 28:19-20. ‘ To ‘observe’ what Jesus has commanded means to 1 surrender to His Spirit and do what he tells you on a minute by minute basis. Not just to adhere to the rules and customs of the faith but to be one with Him in immediate response to His immediate commands. It’s that kind of teaching that is required to make disciples.
Some of us, maybe secretly all of us, long to see the miracles of Jesus in our own day; the healings, the deliverances, the raising people from the dead. But miracles are happening all around us and we just aren’t seeing them. In fact, the miracle that happened in this passage, of Jesus telling the truth to the Samaritan woman about “everything she ever did, and her being delivered, set free, from guilt and shame, fear and anger, truly a miracle, was just the kind of supernatural event that goes on right here, right now, in our own time and place, when someone surrenders to Jesus and is set free from the bondage of alcohol, drugs, porn or slavery, or from their own fears, anger, resentment, shame and guilt. Continue reading
For several years I’ve been writing this book, and after many ups and downs, God let it be published. It’s about discipleship, but it’s not your standard book on the subject. The other day I was at the bank talking to them about opening a new bank account for marketing and promotion of the book, and I was talking to the bank manager and one of the cashiers named Polly. I showed them a copy I just happened to have handy (Ha!). I told them a little about it, and I mentioned that it was available on the Barnes and Noble website on the ‘Net’. I said I had been looking at their website and they had the first 29 pages of the book as a ‘reading sample’. I thought that was pretty cool. They were nice and said they thought it was really neat that I had actually gotten a book published! I said, “Thanks.”
lifevolumeone 