Heart Tracks - Come Meet A Man

The woman left her water jar beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, 'Come meet a man who told me everything I ever did. Can He be the Messiah?' So the people came streaming from the village to see Him." John 4:28-30

What desire might you have that would be so overwhelming that you would leave everything in order to see it fulfilled? I expect most of us could come up with a long list of such things or people. A question: Would any of them be Jesus?

In the dry and arid land of Samaria and the middle east, water was life. The woman was at the well in order to draw forth that which would sustain her life, though as the world measures things, her life at the time did not seem like much of a life at all. In the midst of the day to day sameness and sadness of that life, she encountered Jesus Christ. Jesus has such a way of encountering lives in just this kind of place.

Conversation ensues. Jesus begins to reveal that He knows even the innermost secrets of her life. Indeed, He seems to know her better than she knows herself. In their talking, He brings from the deep, inner parts of her heart, the yearning within for something far more than the "water and bread" of this world. Samaritans were a mixture of both Jewish and other Semitic peoples. Though despised by the Jews, they too shared an expectation of the Messiah one day coming for them. As Jesus so skillfully probes her heart, she expresses this expectation to Him, to which He replies, "I am the Messiah."

We all, whether we're conscious of it or not, are seeking a Messiah. Peter told his listeners in the book of Acts, "The Messiah you are looking for is Jesus." This Messiah, this Jesus, meets us in the most unexpected places and ways. And He does so not only with those who have never known Him, but to those who profess that they have. Somehow, though we may have confessed to have received Him, we continue to seek satisfaction from the bakeries and wells of this world...and miss the fullness of His Living Water and Bread of Life. And in doing so, the hidden longings for Him go on. They must be awakened. Have they been awakened in you. Is He really and truly the One that you would leave all in order to have? Can you lay down your earthly "water jar" in order to drink of the water of His Life? Have you really encountered the Man who knows everything you have ever done, and everything you could ever desire...and is the fulfillment of that desire? If you have, it will show. If you have, you will share. If you have, we have, we will make Him known. No water jar will be enough. No water jar will hold us back.

Come meet a man! Have you met Him? Do you know Him? Psalm 27:8 reads, "My heart has heard You say, 'Come and talk with Me,' and my heart responds, 'Lord, I am coming.' " Has your heart heard Him? Do you come to Him....right now?

Blessings,
Pastor O