Embrace the Suck

God Gold of the Day

John 4:15-18/ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.¹⁸ 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.”

Hope everyone is having an awesome day of dunking on your problems and most of all embracing the living water that is Jesus Christ! I want to give a big shout out to my buddy Zach Farley on creating the new Golden G’s for the logo!! If you ever need any graphic design work done I highly recommend you contact him! He’s one of the most creative and hardworking people I’ve had the blessing to meet!

I thought it was funny that I had plans of looking into WWJD throughout this story but every day God reveals new and awesome truths to show me how my plans don’t really mean that much. That’s been the cool part of typing out these God Gold messages, as much as I want to do it my way and dig into stuff that I want to talk about, He’s always showing me that His ways are so much better. It’s tough to step aside from what I think is best and that’s the same way with anything in life. At the end of the day, He’s always going to be so much better than I could ever be and I’m stinkin thankful I can share Him with y’all!

Looking at what the woman says responding to Jesus’ statements of truth about living water, of course she’s like “yeah give me some of that! Then I won’t have to continuously come to the well day after day trying to be filled and find my peace and joy in something that’ll always leave me wanting more.” I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve went after everything and anything to try and fill that void of emptiness with the hope that maybe I’ll finally have that peace and joy in my life. The result of trying to fill myself with what I got or what this world offers is me being empty at the end of the day. I don’t know how many times I’ve said “Yes Lord, I’ll take all the living water I can get because I’m tired of feeling this way.” Going through the same temporary pleasures, listening to the same lies I tell myself on how this time maybe they’ll give me the comfort and strength I need to overcome my situation or to just make me feel better. It’s so easy when you come to the end of yourself and you realize how incapable and weak you really are, and also realize just how much you need Christ to be your Savior. It’s easy to say you need Him but to come to the point where you truly and desperately need Him so you stop chasing all these things that you used to put your hope in and chase Him even harder, that takes more than just saying it.

It’s awesome how in the moment this woman starts saying “oh yeah that living water that sounds great, I’ll take some.” Jesus then asks her a question about her husbands, because he already knew how many husbands she had. He already knew that she was a prostitute and this was big area of her life where sin was present. So before she gets all excited about drinking this living water, Jesus makes sure she realizes her weakness and sin. Jesus is wanting to show her that anybody can say they need Him but to actually need Him, that starts with the humbling of ones self to see the sin, weakness and brokenness of themselves. Then the need for Jesus and His living water is magnified even more. He wants her to realize how she can’t do this life on her own, that her struggles are too much for her to handle and her need for a Savior. Her desperate need for Living water!

One of my biggest downfalls has always been honesty. Most of all honesty with myself. One of the hardest things to do is admit that I messed up or I need help. In the world we live in it teaches us to be self-confident and self-sufficient but to truly embrace Christ and our need for Him, we have to put the word, “self” aside. It’s so hard to confess that we are sinners, that we’ll sin everyday the rest of our lives, we’ll mess up, we’ll fail because we are weak, broken, and we suck. It’s hard to speak that truth to yourself, to come to terms with who you really are. It’s hard even hearing that but it’s the truth. That’s the beauty of the gospel, we suck and if it wasn’t for Christ coming to save us we still suck so everyday we’re still going to suck. Since Christ gave us Salvation, it’s not just a one time thing, He saves us daily and He also gives us the power and opportunity to realize every day our need for Him. The easy thing to do is lie to yourself, rationalize and justify the things you do, the moments of failure and we do that to make ourselves few better.

These truths are a big part of my relationship with the Lord because without realizing them I’m afraid I’d be stuck in the same old lies and excuses that I used to make, living life everyday thinking that I could figure it out or that I wasn’t really that bad. Living that way only leads to going throughout your years on earth in a sleepwalk. Walking throughout your days listening to the same old lies, putting your hope in the same old regular water, always having to go back to the well every single day for more water because you can never quite quench that thirst for more.

The good news is that Jesus gives a way out of that life of sleepwalking and lies. Jesus allows us to realize the need for Him, the need for change, the means by which to change and become better, to realize Who He truly is, what He’s sacrificed and won for us, what He’s promised us, and how much we desperately need Him. That all starts with coming to terms with the fact that we suck. By ourselves we don’t stand a chance and we’ll always look for that “more” in all the wrong places but speaking truth to yourself, confessing your mistakes, sins, and weakness. That’s the moment you realize your need for a Savior and when you come into His truth. He’ll show you through daily learning about Him and what He’s capable of doing in your life that Jesus “secret stuff” or living water, is victory. He’s the truth, through Him He allows us to be filled with that “more” we were looking for and to believe and put our trust in the “more” He’s made us for and He’s promised to give us! I’m excited to tell ya that you don’t have to keep going to the well. Even if you went to the well yesterday, just speak truth over the lies, embrace the suck, embrace the need for a Savior and just because you went to the well yesterday or the last 1,000  days, Jesus says with Him you don’t have to go to the well today. He’s going to supply you with the Living water you’ve been looking for!

Jesus “Secret stuff”

God Gold of the Day

 

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? ¹² And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?” 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 4:10-15

Have you ever wanted to just put all the crap life throws at you, every obstacle and tough circumstance, just take a leap even when all those things are still trying to wrap you up to hold you back. And dunk on them. I’m talking about a posterizing, Sportcenter top 10 type dunk. The ones where there’s usually somebody in front of you that ends up on the ground because you just boomed on him bad. I can’t tell ya how bad I want to dunk but the problem I have majority of the time is I don’t know how?

When I was in high school I was always one of the taller guys on our basketball team but guys smaller than me would be dunking. No matter how hard I tried my hops just weren’t there. I jumped so high you could barely slide a piece of paper under my feet! I know, impressive right? I wanted to dunk so bad but I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do to get there. For awhile one of the dumber things I did was I found some ankle weights laying around the house. I started wearing them all the time and if I was sitting, standing, you best believe I was doing some calve raises. I was sold that wearing them was going to get my vertical up so I could dunk but after awhile of wearing them, I went in the gym and no surprise, I was still short. So at that point all I had was a Velcro rash on my ankles from wearing those things so much but no results. I didn’t know what to do next and honestly wanted to give up but thank goodness somebody told me, “dude do you jump rope?” I was thinking “well I used to in elementary school when we did jump rope for heart lol. He told me to jump rope and do line drills which is pretty much the same thing. I didn’t have a lot of hope, I felt like I was always going to be held back from throwing one down but I tried it anyways. Went back in the gym after a few weeks of jumping rope, just jumping all the time and that was it. I was playing pickup at my church, I picked off a pass and nobody was in front, I went up like I was going to try and dunk knowing it would probably hit the rim and everybody would laugh saying nice try. When I jumped I got a lot higher than I thought I could, while I was up there I did it! I finally dunked. I turned around jaw dropped, stunned and I think the guys I was playing with were just as surprised.

When looking at these verses where Jesus is telling this woman about living water, I couldn’t help but think of that experience and that memorable scene from space jam where Micheal Jordan went up from half court to dunk it, it was looking good until the Monstars grabbed on to him, holding him back from dunking it. But he kept stretching his arm out, kept reaching even when it looked impossible because the monsters were so big and weighed him down. But at the end of that play, he dunked on the monstars and the looney toons won the game.

So what does all that talk about dunking have to do with living water? Jesus tells this woman that if she knew that she was talking to the Son of God, the Savior of the world, then she would ask for living water. She then responds in such a human view, the well is too deep, you don’t even have tools. I just thought about situations and struggles in my life, how often do I realize the opportunity in front of me in my relationship with Jesus? How often do I keep my eyes set on how deep my well is or how bad my problems and not realize that Jesus gives me living water to handle those situations and even more have victory over them? It’s hard when when no matter what we try or how far we reach out, dunking and overcoming our circumstances seem impossible. What makes it even harder is when I look for all my answers and solutions in my strength, my tools the world gives me to the point that I trust way more in me and the resources of this world than trusting in the only way to truly dunk and have victory over what’s in front of me.

Living water is what Jesus promises this woman and when she hears that she is jacked up saying, “yeah I’ll take 10 cases!” Jesus explains it to us by comparing it to regular water, or the things we put our trust in to solve our problems whether that ourselves, a substance, anything that the world offers. He says when we put our trust in these things of the world or even ourselves, we’ll always be thirsty. It’s like wearing the ankle weights, it seemed like a good idea for a short time, seemed like a quick fix to my problem but do we really want a quick fix? Then always end up falling a few inches short of deliverance. The living water Jesus promises comes from Him and him alone, only He can supply it, only He can give us the satisfaction and victory we truly seek. And His water isn’t just a quick fix or temporary solution, it gives life, a lasting life, filling us for eternity. It’s Jesus and just Jesus. Only He can supply us with what we need to fight these battles we face. Even when it feels like the hits keep coming from every direction, you’re constantly being weighted down by the failure, insecurity, and doubt making this Monstar size problem bigger and scarier than ever. Jesus gives us living water, everything we need and then some to be strengthened, have peace, joy, and hope knowing that no matter what comes my way I don’t have to look to all these horizontal answers because my only answer and life, is vertical in Christ.

I don’t know where you’re at right now with your relationship with Christ or even if you don’t have one. I don’t know how many battles you’re facing each and every day that have you feeling beat and discouraged. I do know that I have struggles too and one of my biggest ones is letting go of myself and things of this world to truly embrace the power, love and faithfulness of the Savior. It’s a hard life and we’re always going to have tough times, we’re always going to fail, but the good thing is that we don’t have to live off regular water because we have the Son of God by our side. Constantly showing us and giving us everything we new to handle and live in victory over every and any battle we may face. It doesn’t matter how deep your well is, Jesus will bring the water to your life to the point of overflow. All we can do is put our hope and trust in Him and the gift of this living water. Embracing Him in every way we can whether through the Word, talking to Him in prayer, just looking to Him above all else. It’s a long tough road to get to dunking but keep seeking and sipping, Jesus has promised us living water. They are going to have to replace the goals before Jesus gets done because the dunks are going to be coming in hot.

Jesus “Secret Stuff”

God Gold of the Day

John 4:10-11/ 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?

After spending a few days learning about WWJD and how to apply the example of Christ to our lives, it was too hard reading verses 10 and 11 in the story of the woman at the well and limit these truths to one thing. In a way the lesson I learned today is from what Jesus did but more importantly, it’s what Jesus says that is so huge. Just a little background to set the scene, Jesus is in enemy territory (Samaria), sitting at a well and when a Samaritan woman comes up to grab her a ice cold bottle of water, Jesus asks her for a drink. The woman is in shock that Jesus, a Jew, would much less be in the same area but speak to her, a Samaritan, who was looked down upon by the Jewish people during this time. After trying to wrap her head around this unlikely and weird situation, Jesus responds to her questions about His openness and love towards her and look at what He says.

What Jesus says here may not make a lot of sense, I even thought what in the world is living water, like can water be alive? Is Jesus not talking about that fresh Disani water you get from the well and I’m with the woman here, how’s He plan on getting this water from a deep well without any tools? This woman’s reaction is exactly what mine would be because in my human eyes, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s crazy how much of God”s Word sounds wild and crazy, sometimes it’s really hard to understand the truth in it, but majority of the time it’s because we immediately resort to our means and resources of seeing it the way we want it. That doesn’t help much if we have a relationship with the Lord and when we read what He’s literally speaking to us, we don’t spend time to see Him as speaking and Him as the Word. It’s hard to treat the truths found in God’s Word and the time we spend in reading it and not try to read it like any other book. The thing is, it’s by far not just any other book so this was a big reminder for me to be more intentional about that time in the Word knowing that with every word, God is speaking to me, teaching me something about myself and most importantly about Him. Just like anything else we do in life, when we operate out of our strength and our lack of knowledge, we are putting aside the importance of our intimate relationship with the Lord. Even in Seminary classes, I don’t have a clue to understanding the ways of Christ and the Word. Something I’ve done for years and something I still do is go into the Word, prayer, or any moment spent with Christ and just glance at it thinking “oh that’s good stuff.” Then I go about my day like nothing happened. What I usually realize during my day when I’ve just been glancing at my relationship with Christ is that I feel like I’m running on fumes, the struggles, temptation, and trials that come up easily tear me up and I definitely don’t have a lot of Joy.

This woman at the well is meeting Christ for the first time so she obviously doesn’t have a clue about Who He is or what He’s capable of. Of course, she’s going to answer in this way acting like Jesus is speaking in another language. What really hit my heart was the fact that I know Jesus personally and know that He’s capable of literally anything but here I sit, daily asking the same questions to Him as I so easily forget WHO it is I am talking to and living with. It’s hard to think of how often I do this but also relating to this women again, I doubt in the midst of conversation she really looked deeply into Who she was talking to and the words He spoke. She was glancing at Christ and His Word. I try so hard to make sense of Jesus, my relationship with Him, and God’s Word but in my human thinking and terms, He’ll never make sense because His ways our so much higher than ours. So when I heard living water my first thought was regular water. To get regular, plain, normal water, we go to the store and buy it in large quantities. Maybe aquafina or disani, whatever your preference, you have to do something to get it just like this woman thinks the only way to get this water Jesus is speaking of is to lower a bucket down in the well on a rope and pull it up. The truth is we don’t have to do anything because if you have salvation in the name of Christ, that loving relationship with Him, He’s already offered and given you living water. The part we get wrong because it’s what makes sense to us is He’s given us this out His grace and love, we didn’t have to go to the store, put our bucket down in the well, we didn’t have to do anything.

In tomorrow’s God Gold we’re going to look at what Jesus means by living water but today it’s all about the opportunity and the blessing of knowing Christ personally. And Who Christ is, the One who has given us life and life eternally, the One who gives us this living water. It’s been such a huge lesson for me to not just glance at these verses and get what I want from them, but to really look at them and look deeply, intensely at what Jesus is saying here, what this woman’s response means to me. Jesus basically tells her, if you only knew then you wouldn’t be asking these questions. The same goes for us, when we come to Jesus asking things of Him, when we respond to His answers and His words trying so hard to do something on our own to achieve what we want instead of just trusting in Him, trusting in Who He is. Our relationship begins and ends with our identity with Christ. I fight my identity everyday, trying to be someone I’m not or who the world tells me I should be but the foundation of my life and my true identity is in Christ. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who is God in the flesh. He came down to earth, walked as we walked, making Himself available to such a weak and sinful people, knowing that without His sacrifice on the cross and raising from the grave, we would remain a defeated people to sin and death. Christ made the sacrifice for our sins, He was resurrected from the grave on the third day and in His raising to new life was victory! After walking out His life on this earth, enduring temptation and the sorrows of this world, He walked perfect not falling once. He was the living example of victory over sins and in His resurrection He was the victory over death. So in His resurrection and victory He broke the chains of the life of slavery to sin and the death we deserved so we too could be raised up from our old life and into the newness and fullness of Christ. He gave us life and life eternally. In this life with Christ He has given us victory over sin so we don’t have to walk in our desires of our flesh but so we can truly live in freedom with our hope in that victory. Jesus did all this so we could lay our sins at His feet while the His blood washes our sin debt clean to the Father. He’s our mediator to God, giving us access to the creator of all, the Holy, loving, and only God. With our lives in Jesus’s salvation and victory we have freedom, freedom to live in this world without a worry or insecurity about our struggles or bad circumstances because we have Him by our side and we have the hope of eternity with Him after this life is over. Jesus is the King of Kings, our deliverer, our victory, the always loving and always faithful Savior that gave up everything so in return He could give it all to us.

Knowing the gift that God has for you and Who Jesus Christ is, that is the root of our salvation in Him. He’s the foundation on which we build our lives and I’m not a construction person but it seems like to make sure we have a strong foundation. All we can do is sit back and really look deeply at Him, look into Who He is, the gift He’s given us, studying Him, seeking Him to learn more about Who He is, what He is speaking to us, and learning more about His heart. Jesus Christ is the secret in “Jesus’ secret stuff.” Sent a link at the beginning with the Space Jam scene where they drink Micheal’s special stuff. What better way to prepare to drink Jesus’s living water than defeating the Monstars and dunking on the enemy? Hope it hypes you up for learning about Living Water in tomorrow’s gold!!!

WWJD: Part II

God Gold of the Day

John 4:7-9/ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

Excited to get back into the gold today and see what God has in store! Yesterday’s gold kind of laid the foundation of the simple truth; we don’t know what to do but that’s okay because we have the perfect example of Christ to look at and learn from. Also, understanding that Christ has walked in these same shoes we’re walking in today and He did it without ever giving in to temptations or stumbling along the way, that makes striving to become more like Christ daily even more important. With these messages the main thing the Lord has put on my heart is that I’m just tired of always doing what Jordan would do because the way I handle situations and act always ends up making a bigger mess. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing or where to even begin trying to learn and apply WWJD but I’m excited to dig in to these pieces of scripture and learn more about Christ and His ways.

So yesterday we saw that Jesus was in the middle of His earthly ministry and while He was traveling, He became tired and decided to stop in Samaria at a well. It’s kind of cool when I was looking yesterday I saw Jesus said “He needed” to go to Samaria and after looking at where He was coming from and where He was going, Samaria wasn’t even on the way to His destination. Samaria was a detour, why would Christ need to go there? Why would He take time out of His very important and short ministry to go out of His way to Samaria? It’s funny when you look at it a lot of the things Christ did doesn’t make a lot of sense to us and I guess that’s kind of the point. Even when we think our intentions are really really good and we’ve got it all figured out, the outcome doesn’t usually look as good as we thought it would. Those are moments when we look back and see exactly how applying a Christ-like approach or living in His will instead of our own could have made a big difference in how the situations in our lives turn out. I thought about a lot of stuff Christ did and taught us to do by example; turning the other cheek, hanging out with the worst of the worst, and so many others. Christ was the weirdest dude to ever walk the earth compared to the way we do things and the way we’re taught by this world to act. Following Christ is weird, uncomfortable, and doesn’t always make sense so I guess if we’ve got one of those symptoms we’re getting closer to a big case of WWJD and by looking at what He’s capable of and the outcomes that come when He’s in the lead. I don’t know about you but bring on the WWJD.

I’ve noticed too one of the biggest problems I have is getting so caught up in my “to-do-list”, in the mundane of the everyday grind, trying to get my stuff done to the point that detours and interruptions in my plans get me so upset. I’ll even see those things coming up and completely avoid them so I can stay on my path to get my stuff done. The big lesson I noticed from Jesus here is that He’s operating completely in God’s will, He’s so in tune with what God is doing and wants done that He doesn’t just want to go out of His way on His journey from town to town but “He needs” to go out of the way. It’s the submission of self, our plans and wants, putting our lives down and following God’s will for our lives even when the majority of the time it may not make sense, His ways are higher than ours. His direction and purpose for our lives always leads us to destinations and outcomes for our good. More importantly for the good of the Kingdom because when Jesus stops at this well in Samaria, He’s not the only one there. For ourselves and even the lives around us, we NEED to follow His will above our own. Embracing God’s plans and purposes, seeing detours as a new path in His plan instead of an obstacle and seeing interruptions as what God is putting in front of you in the moment, not something holding us up but something that God has divinely appointed to happen so you may decrease from your selfish wants and plans in submission to His will that we need. Those things we see as interruptions can be a something that moves us forward, it could be a moment where not only it’s a breakthrough moment in our life and relationship with the Lord but also a chance to help someone else to have a very similar breakthrough impacting moment with Christ.

Jesus goes out His way on His travels to Samaria and when He stops at this well a Samaritan woman comes up to draw water. What’s even crazier that Jesus would take important time out of His important ministry schedule, Samaria is a place that Jews just don’t go. During the time of exile for the Jews, some of the Jews made families and came together with the people that took them captive and that is Samaritans. Jewish people wanted nothing to do with these dirty, sinful people because in their eyes they were a disgrace to the Jewish race. Jesus not only goes out His way but into a territory of the “enemy’, a people that are looked down upon and in the Jew’s eyes they are the worst of the worst. I rarely go out of my way much less going somewhere and interacting with people that are by world standards “not from the right side of the tracks.” Not only with people in a different worldly standing than ourselves or in a worse place personally than we are, but the people right around us in our lives that we see often. Maybe we have a problem with them, for some reason we can’t help but not to like them or the people that constantly cause problems for us and don’t treat us very good either with words or actions. No matter what kind of person it is and what kind of relationship you have with them, Jesus shows us a big truth here. You ready? It’s a big one and it’s one that hit me right in the gut. It doesn’t matter who they are or how you feel about them, love them. Even if that’s just being in their presence and not necessarily doing anything for them, just love them by being around them. If anything that’s a start and it’s farther than we would go if it was up to us, I prove that everyday.

Whether it’s an enemy or someone that you wouldn’t usually associate yourself with, go out of your way and love them. It’s hard to see Christ is “loving her” from just looking at these verses since He’s just sitting there and asking for a drink of water. Looking at it deeper, His love is everywhere in this situation. The fact that He went out of His way, to a place to be around people like her which are the Jew’s enemies, He’s the Son of God so if He really needed water He could probably make that happen without getting some from her, just the simple fact He was sitting there talking to her, that’s love. I had to ask myself, “how often do I lower my pride and selfish ways to reach out to others, even when I could sit and try to figure it out on my own. It takes a lot of humility to express your need for something, especially from someone you’re not supposed to like. Christ turns the tables on this whole situation because wouldn’t you think it’s the Samaritan asking for a drink from the Jew, the human asking for something from God in the flesh? The example Christ sets here is for us to humble ourselves not just below the people who are “above” us but to every single person no matter who they are. Also, I was thinking about how Christ once again goes against what we see as “normal” in this world. It sucks that we’re constantly influenced to think if someone is from a different social class, skin color, sexuality, or whatever is not Christian then we are supposed to stay as far away from them as we can and from a distance talk bad about them or the bad things someone has done in their past. How is handling it that way ever going to make things better or help them see Christ in us? It’s not and it’s convicting knowing how often I do that. Just like Jesus shows us, you don’t have to do anything special, try to turn them with Bible knowledge or give them a bunch of money, whatever the situation calls for. Just be willing to go places around people you may see as enemies or people who you wouldn’t usually associate with, and then love them. Whether with words, actions, or however just be there and love them. Christ could have looked at this lady and said, “well here comes a Samaritan, I don’t associate with those filthy people and I don’t want anyone to see me doing that so I’m outta here.” Instead, Christ set the example, He was weird about it by going against the norm to show her how much he loved her by just being there and humbling Himself admitting His need of water. He’s also showing us that we don’t have to live in the norm because following Christ is so far from that planet. Humbling ourselves before all people, loving all people. This Samaritan lady is even puzzled on  why Christ is talking to her, a Samaritan? She can’t believe that He is doing this, she hasn’t met Christ before so can’t comprehend what the Savior is all about.

After looking at all the different takeaways from the example Christ is setting for us, there isn’t a situation in which having this humble, loving attitude wouldn’t turn the “normal” outcome upside down. Taking these lessons of WWJD and applying them to whatever person or situation you’ll ever have, people will sit there with their jaw-dropped at how you’re acting because remember, being Christ like isn’t normal, it’s just downright weird. And to think that those jaw-dropped people may have never met Christ so that weirdness coming out of you could change their day or even their lives. Dang. I’m pretty upset at myself for all the times I’ve acted out of what Jordan was feeling or thought was best. The good thing is that there’s no better time than right now to put ourselves and our pasts aside, attack the day in front of us like the biggest Jesus loving, humble, light-filled weirdo this world has ever seen!

WWJD

I am so jacked to share these truths that have been sitting on my heart lately from God’s Word with you! It’s such a daggum blessing to be able to send these out and learn so much about the awesomeness of Christ but to think that your hearts might be touched too just blows my mind! He’s got so much awesomeness! So, lately I’ve had to deal with some situations and changes in my life that have been way out of my comfort zone and made me realize even more that I don’t have a clue what to do. The cool part about not having a clue about what to do next, how to act or handle something, those are the moments we come to the end of ourselves. Through God’s amazing grace and the power of the Spirit working within us, we may be at the end of ourselves but at the beginning of Christ. It’s hard to admit we don’t have all the answers and can’t be self-sufficient but that’s the gospel. Christ coming to save us broken, sinful, and weak people, giving us freedom to live with Him today and forever, to walk in His ways not our own, and rest in Him being all we need. He is our Savior and the more we get out of the way, the more He allows us to see our need for Him and our need to be more transformed daily to walk in His light, not our darkness or the darkness of the world. I’ve heard it a million times, we’re called to be Christ-like, live as examples of the sinless, perfect Savior, but during these moments where I’ve been brought to the end of myself the Lord has allowed me to see how we say that and maybe even have the best intentions of living more like Him but the sad truth is we don’t even know where to start. It seems like an impossible task to live like such a perfect example but He didn’t call us to be perfect, He called us to trust Him and each day come a little closer to the ends of ourselves meaning what we think we should do, what we think is best to handle this or act in that. He calls us to become less, and the closer we become to less, the more Christ is present in our hearts and lives. I’ve struggled so hard thinking to be more Christ-like means to do more like reading my Bible or praying more but at the end of the day there is still so much Jordan in me that it’s hard to see a whole lot of good. To be more Christ-like isn’t about doing more, it’s simply becoming less and trusting Him more. I got brought to a point where I was trying to make all these things happen, trying to force stuff in my life whether with relationships or any area really, I was trying to what I thought was “great things” but at the end of the day I was running off Jordan juice and I did more harm than good. The Lord has made it obvious by bringing situations up that I can’t handle or find answers to, that the only way to get a different or great outcome, was to simply become less and be more like Christ. It’s been hard to look at situations and not immediately try to figure it out or fix it, but just remind myself, “okay, what would Jesus do? How would He handle this? How would He have me handle this so I don’t make a bigger mess and have an outcome that shows the light of Christ and shows His light to others?” Those questions at first were scary because how do we know what Jesus would do? How do we possibly act more in His awesome ways? The answer was right in front of me written all over God’s Word and most of all in the pages of the Gospel books where we have a window to see exactly how Christ acted, how He handled so many tough situations.

I usually don’t do series or any kind of lessons but these next few God Golds are going to be lessons for myself as I look into this specific story from John to see how I can learn about Christ, how He acted and how He lived. I pray these lessons can be a help for you also, so we can go on this journey together and see what the Lord wants to show us about Himself and ourselves, with the hope of daily applying these truths and bringer the much needed light of Christ to such a dark world.

John 4:1-6/ When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,). He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee. And he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.  Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

The story of the woman at the well is one I’ve heard a lot of times but I’ve never thought about it like this. Jesus is in the middle of His ministry on earth and He’s obviously a pretty busy guy with a lot to do during this time. Jesus spent 33 years on this earth and only 3 years in ministry so you would think during this 3 years He’s out there getting it, going as fast as He can doing as much as He can before He gets called back home. It’s crazy to me that the Son of God who was fully human and fully God got tired and needed rest but becoming fully human, He went through all the same needs that our flesh goes through. Of course, at any moment He could have snapped His fingers to fix His need but to truly be an example to the people in the flesh, He went all the way. He endured the same temptations and struggles of our weak flesh that we have so when we look at His example like we are here, we can’t just say well Jesus doesn’t understand because He never went through what we’re going through, oh but He did. Seriously sit and think about that, Jesus came down in FULL human form and went through exactly what we endure so He could be our mediator to a God that’s so perfect and Holy, He loved us so much that He came to live as us and be with us and when we are going through something that’s hard, when our flesh is pulling us to go away from God’s ways, Jesus has compassion, love and grace all in one waiting for us because He understands and knows that this life can be hard at times. And what’s even more crazy to think about is Jesus died as a sacrifice for us so we can be with Him now and forever, so He can be there for us in the form of the Holy Spirit living in us because He experienced and lived this and knows how hard it is to get through. It blows my mind to think about Jesus loving us that much and to think He went through His life in the flesh perfect and blameless so we can also look to Him as the example of all examples to learn from and live like.

I’ve honestly never really thought about that one part of the verse saying “Jesus was wearied” or tired from His traveling. It’s stinkin wild that I sat down with the intention of really digging into this story and seeing what we can learn from Christ but God had different plans. That one phrase just set the foundation of our view of Christ and why we are called to daily strive in being more like our Savior and follow His example. I sit here in amazement from what God has already taught us through these pieces of His Word and I can’t wait to see what other awesome truths He has in store for us so we can learn how to be a little more like Christ and lesser of ourselves today than we were yesterday.