Mount Hermon - where the Jordan River begins.
John 4
1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.
4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
This entry into Samaria is an aspect of Father God we rarely consider. Father God says so many times we delight Him and actually cause Him to sing.
We are so sure God is disappointed. Father God Created the Universe. We are going to remain His Children. God is pleased if we give Him our hearts and say, "Om, please." With true sincerity and depth of heart.
Here is the passage we so often debate...
Exodus 14
5The LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the LORD. 6Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed,
"The LORD, the LORD God,
compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;
7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands,
who forgives iniquity,
transgression and sin;
yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished,
visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children
and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."
What about when History rolls past those who did "Good". Those who did "Well."
The Samaritans, we learned in 1960s, are actually 3 DNA Tribes of the Children of Israel. Just about solely Jewish 3 tribes. And they acted as the remnants keeping the rubble of the First Temple active and Worship alive during the Babylonian Exile. For their thanks, the Jews returned and cast them out without their papers of authenticity.
Jesus is sweeping up God Style here. We so often treat Jesus as if HE owes us forgiveness. Jesus is displaying Himself here to the Samaritans these God Qualities:
compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;
who keeps lovingkindness for thousands,
who forgives iniquity,
transgression and sin
Jesus declares HIMSELF to her. As GOD. Even in John's 16th Chapter, His Disciples are seeking, yearning and openly saying, "Speak more plainly." Jesus trusts Himself not to mankind in the Passover in Jerusalem in John's 2nd Chapter. But right here, in despised Samaria, to a woman when the times considered women somewhat as property, Jesus is frank, open and honest. Jesus is displaying this to perfection:
Romans 9
15 For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION." 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
God is showing mercy on the generations. Not Judgment - mercy upon women. Upon Samaritans. With His Trust. The Willingness of God is Kindness. That whole Exodus paragraph and we focus on generations of generational sin. Jesus focuses on some got swept out of His Mercy and He is going to reclaim His Beloved!!! With Honesty!
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Amos 5
23 "Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. 24 "But let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Psalm 29:3
The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the LORD is upon many waters.
Give Justice with Mercy, Walk Humbly with Your God.
Malachi 3:10
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
Isaiah 48:18
If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea.
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water!”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”
28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”
33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.
37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’
38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”
40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.
41 And many more believed because of his word.
42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
Jesus was not unknown, Jesus was growing in amazing miracles. Godspell is a great musical, but the knowledge of Jesus was sweeping the Nation of Israel.
43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.
Acts 10:34
34 Opening his mouth, Peter said: "I most certainly understand now that God is no respecter of persons, not one to show partiality, 35 but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.
Jesus had just "Tossed the Temple." Jesus, if He'd kept a 'List of Friends', would not have Temple or Synagogue Officials as the 'Let's Help and Please Them' category. Nor, really, was an Official supposed to be seeking Jesus of Nazareth for help.
46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill.
47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”
49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.”
The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. 51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.”
53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household.
54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.
Father God,
Jesus perceived our thinking in our hearts. He perceived in His Spirit our reasoning within ourselves. Jesus is honest and says do not harbor evil in our hearts. And Jesus told us to believe as a little child believes.
Father God, Jesus was good to the woman at the well and good to the Temple Official. Jesus left all of this up to Father God and showed Justice with Mercy in Humility in His walk with You.
If Sheol lies open before the LORD, How much more the hearts of men!
Father God, O LORD of hosts, You who test the righteous, Who see the mind and the heart; Let me have Your mercy upon the causes and prayers of my life. In the Name covering me, Jesus, I will approach You with confidence. Asking for Your blessing to be Called and Charged in Life. That in Jesus I will be found justified and Righteous in Your Sight.
Give to us all an increased measure of the Holy Spirit for these Churches, Communities, Work Places, Nation and People of the World seeking Jesus. Father God, who knows the heart, testify again to giving us more of the Holy Spirit, just as You have before.
Bless those we love, the People You have given us and our concerns to be held to You. In the Highest Name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
♔ Lord Jesus Saves †
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