Where then do You get that living water? —John 4:11
{CHAMBERS} “‘The
well is deep’ — and even a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew!
(John 4:11). […] Have you been limiting, or impoverishing, the ministry of
Jesus to the point that He is unable to work in your life? Suppose that you
have a deep “well” of hurt and trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and
says to you, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:1). Would your response
be to shrug your shoulders and say, “But, Lord, the well is too deep, and even
You can’t draw up quietness and comfort out of it.” […] We impoverish and
weaken His ministry in us the moment we forget He is almighty. […] We will come
to Jesus for Him to be our comforter or our sympathizer, but we refrain from
approaching Him as our Almighty God.[…] When we get into difficult
circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying, “Of course, He can’t do
anything about this.” We struggle to reach the bottom of our own well, trying
to get water for ourselves. Beware of sitting back, and saying, “It can’t be
done.” You will know it can be done if you will look to Jesus.”
{ELGIN} Denying the power of Jesus. We do it all the time. We try to do it ourselves. We know the scripture … “Come to Me all you
that are weary and heavy laden” (Matthew
11:28); “In my weakness, His strength is made perfect”(2 Corinthians 12:9); “Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares
for you” (1 Peter 5:7); “I can do all things through Christ who gives
me strength” (Philippians 4:13); “Trust
in the Lord .. and don’t lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5,6) And yet, when faced with the difficulties that this
life brings, our dependence upon our faith fails us. We look to Jesus for
salvation easily enough, but when times get tough .. well maybe not so
much. What I am about to say is not be a
popular Christian view. To quote Pastor
Rick Warren – “God is not interested so much in our comfort as He is in our
character.” There are essentially two
types of maladies that we face in this life.
The first are those that are a consequence of our sin. The second are those that are a consequence
of living in a fallen world. In both
cases, we must look to God for strength to bear them. God is more likely to walk with you through
the trouble than He is to remove the trouble, but He may. Can you accept the fact that you are living
for the glory of God?
(2 Corinthians 4:8-12)
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in
despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We
always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus
may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given
over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our
mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” Does that sound like a life of ease? God’s Word is Truth. As true as 2 Corinthians 4:8-12 is about the
difficulties we will face, so are the verses that tell us about the sufficiency
of Jesus in the midst of those difficulties.
“The life that we now life we are to live by faith in the Son who loved
us and gave Himself up for us” (Galatians
2:20) You must do more than believe
it .. you must “faith” it, which is applied belief.
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