Today we continue our time on the Prayer Covenant featuring Discipleship and our call to God.
The Ministry of Jesus
I love the way Jesus ministered to men, women and children throughout His ministry. He didn’t begin by saying, “You’re a sinner. Repent. Pray this prayer and you’ll be saved.” Quite the opposite. He engaged by asking meaningful questions. He listened. He showed compassion. He offered forgiveness and then He challenged them to follow Him. It’s a beautiful model for us to follow.
Jesus and the Samaritan
In John 4, we find the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Jesus was traveling from Judea to Galilee but had to go through Samaria. He was tired and took a rest by Jacob’s well. Jesus asked a Samaritan woman who came to draw water each day for some water.
She was stunned, You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?
In verse 10, Jesus begins to answer her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. At first, she did not understand. Jesus went on, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman replied, Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water (John 4:15).
Jesus asked her to go and bring her husband. She honestly replied that she did not have one. Jesus said to her in verse 17, You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.
“How would this man know this about me?” She recognized He was a prophet.
Jesus went on, You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.
The woman affirmed I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.
Jesus responded, I, the one speaking to you—I am he.
We must leave it there for today but imagine with me her surprise that not only a Jew stopped to speak with her, but the Messiah himself and praise God he is still speaking to us today.
