Category Archives: The Love of Christ

Come to the Well

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“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” Let anyone who hears this say, “Come.” Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life.” Revelation 22:17 NLT.

Let us just settle one thing at the very beginning: you do not have to “get good” to “get God”!

It just doesn’t work that way. And we can be so thankful that it doesn’t! We don’t have to work at our salvation. It is a free gift. We have to accept it. We have to Come…

Casting Crowns recorded a beautiful song, “The Well”, and the first verse is the story of so many:

“I have what you need, but you keep on searching

I’ve done all the work, but you keep on working.”

There we are, out there looking for the answers, doing all the work that has already been done at Calvary! He has paid the price, it is finished. Come…

Now look at the rest of that verse:

“When you’re running on empty

And you can’t find the remedy

Just come to the well.”

You’ve looked everywhere, exhausted all of your resources, but still you can’t find the remedy, the cure, the tonic, the right medicine to calm the ache inside. Come…

“Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” …The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

“But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? …Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again.  But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.” John 4:7-15 NLT.

The woman at the well was the same way. She was a woman with a past…five husbands and the one she was living with was not her husband.

She finds Jesus sitting at the well. At this meeting Jesus breaks three Jewish customs. First, He spoke to a woman, second, she was a Samaritan woman, and third He asks a Samaritan woman to get Him a drink. This would have made Him ceremonially unclean by using her cup or jar. She was so surprised by His request!

She met Jesus unexpectedly. She even came at the wrong time. She purposely came in the heat of the day to avoid the other women and their stares.

But He doesn’t condemn her. He offers her living water and eternal life! Come…

“And all who thirst will thirst no more
And all who search will find
What their souls long for
The world will try but it can never fill
So leave it all behind
And come to the well”

The woman who was caught in the act of adultery was brought to Jesus by a crowd who was expecting her to be tried and convicted. But Jesus surprised them all when He said first to the crowd, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Then He said to her, “Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.” John 8:7, 11 KJV.

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Come…

“So bring me your heart, no matter how broken
Just come as you are, when your last prayer is spoken”

The sins of the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery were not ignored or overlooked by Jesus. They were forgiven. Forgiveness is waiting for us when we are ready to confess and forsake our old life and walk in newness of life with Christ.  We cannot clean up our lives without the help of Almighty God. We must turn from our sin but we cannot do that on our own, we need His help, we need salvation.

Do not keep saying to yourself, “Once I get everything fixed in my life I will come to the Lord.” It will never happen. That is a trick of the enemy; he loves to deceive people in that manner.

Remember, you cannot get good to get God!

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“Just rest in my arms a while
You’ll feel a change, my child
When you come to the well”

Come…

What a relief and a weight will be lifted from your shoulders! The woman at the well couldn’t wait to share the news! “The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?’ So the people came streaming from the village to see him.” John 4:28-30 NLT.

The lyrics at the end of the Casting Crowns song are so good. This list of things that you can be rid of for the rest of your life when you “Come…”

Your pursuit of perfection (leave it all behind)
Your fear of rejection (leave it all behind)
Your temporary pleasures (leave it all behind)
All your earthly treasures (leave it all behind)
Dried up empty religion (leave it all behind)
Rusty chains of addiction (leave it all behind)
All the guilt that weighs you down (leave it all behind)
Just leave it all behind and come to the well 

What are you waiting for?

Be the Hands and Feet of Jesus!

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Be the hands and feet of Jesus!

 “No man is an island.” ~ John Donne

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you…For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a  drink…when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’”  Matthew 25:34-40.

Jesus has always called us to reach to the “least of these”, to serve the needs of others as He did.

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.” John 14:12.

One of the greatest examples of the apostles being the Hands and Feet of Jesus in the early Church is found in the third chapter of the Book of Acts. Peter and John were on their way to the Temple to pray like they did every day at around three o’clock. There was a man who was lame from birth being carried in. Every day he was put beside the Temple gate, the one they called the Beautiful Gate, so he could beg from the people going into the Temple.

When the lame man saw Peter and John, he asked them for money too, but Peter said, “Look at us! I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazarene, get up and walk!” Acts 3:4-6 NLT.

According to the Word, and the Name of Jesus, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed! He jumped up and began to walk and the Bible said he went “…walking, leaping and praising God…into the Temple with them.” Acts 3:8 NLT.

Peter and John were being the Hands and Feet of Jesus. Jesus had already ascended into Heaven. He had told the disciples to wait for the Promise of the Father, the Comforter, which He would send. And He did. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, according to Acts 2.

And The Church is born.

Such as I have

We are the continuance of the Early Church; we are the 29th chapter of Acts!

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And the only way we can continue to write that 29th chapter is to be the Hands and Feet of Jesus.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16 NIV.

Jesus entrusted us to be the Light when He left us in charge of things here on this earth. Here we find ourselves in the Endtime. It doesn’t take a scholar or a theologian to realize that things are winding down. Jesus is coming back for His Church, His Bride! But that doesn’t mean that we are to sit back and just wait for Him to catch us away. We are to be about our Father’s business. We must be the Hands and Feet of Jesus.

We are responsible to reach out as much as we possibly can, to touch as many as we can with the Good News that Jesus is alive and lives to give eternal life to all who want to partake of it.

“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!’” Romans 10:14, 15 NKJV.

The story is told of a small town in Italy that had a beautiful statue of Jesus in its town square. One day there came a horrific hurricane that devastated the city. The statue was toppled and when the clean-up crew finally came around they found that the statue was mostly intact except that the hands and feet were missing and crushed beyond repair.

It was finally decided to erect the statue back to its original place and a plaque was put up that said, “Jesus has no hands and feet except yours…”

Those words are true for us today. We are His hands and feet in this world. The Sweetheart says this so often in his sermons, “He didn’t save us just to save us. We are here for a bigger purpose. He saved us to reach others.” He means that after salvation we aren’t just to sit down and fold our hands and wait for Heaven. Jesus told us to go into all the world and share this truth; we have a responsibility!

Let us do all we can today to reach our world with the Good News, the Gospel that Jesus Saves!

For the kingdom

 

 

O God, thy sea is so great, my boat is so small!

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Happy New Year! Beginning today with last year’s most clicked post. I am just a little drop of water in a magnificent ocean, I am so small. But He is so great!! Be blessed with this beautiful story.

An Old Breton prayer was inscribed on a block of wood on the desk of President John F. Kennedy. Admiral Hyman Rickover would give it to new submarine captains and also presented one to the President. Kennedy loved the quote and used it in his dedication of the East Coast Memorial to the Missing at Sea, May 23, 1963. He always kept in on his desk in the Oval Office and it is now in the JFK Presidential Museum and Library.

Here is the poem in its entirety:

Thy sea, O God, so great,
My boat so small.
It cannot be that any happy fate
Will me befall
Save as Thy goodness opens paths for me
Through the consuming vastness of the sea.
 
Thy winds, O God, so strong,
So slight my sail.
How could I curb and bit them on the long
And saltry trail,
Unless Thy love were mightier than the wrath
Of all the tempests that beset my path?
 
Thy world, O God, so fierce,
And I so frail.
Yet, though its arrows threaten oft to pierce
My fragile mail,
Cities of refuge rise where dangers cease,
Sweet silences abound, and all is peace.
~Winfred Ernest Garrison
 
So much goodness in these words! What a Mighty God! I am frail, I am small, I am even weak. Sometimes LIFE overwhelms me and “unless thy love were mightier than the wrath of all the tempests that beset my path”, I could never make it through those storms.
 
O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.

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I love the ending, “Cities of refuge rise where dangers cease, sweet silences abound, and all is peace.”

In the Old Testament there were Cities of Refuge. When the Promised Land was divided up among the twelve tribes of Israel, only one tribe did not receive land: the Levites. They were given the care and upkeep of the Tabernacle and to be the priests of the Lord.  Part of their inheritance consisted of 48 cities that were spread throughout the land and six of those were Cities of Refuge.

If someone committed a murder, for example, under the Mosaic Law, they were to be put to death. Exodus 21:14. But if it was an unintentional or accidental death, he could flee to a City of Refuge and be “safe” from his avenger until a “trial” was held to determine his guilt or innocence. As long as he stayed in the City of Refuge, no one could touch him. If he left the city for any reason, and there were people seeking his life, he was no longer under that protection.

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Aren’t you thankful for a place of refuge in Jesus Christ! We can run to Him in our distress and be protected, even forgiven, from the accuser of the brethren, Satan himself. No matter what he wants to charge us with, Jesus has already paid the price and we can find comfort and safety in His everlasting arms.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.” Psalms 46:1-3.

Yes, the sea of life is so big, sometimes scary and even overwhelming. But our God is so GREAT and able to carry us through anything if we take refuge in Him.

Rest in that hope today!

Have you received your copy of The Daniel Fast – A Devotional yet? Get prepared for the New Year with the paperback or kindle version now!DF-cover-side-view

Be blessed!

Kingdom2

 

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