Category: Spiritual

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The remedy for defunct alignment/ revelation issues….

Now, imagine you have just realized you’re out of alignment or without revelation, in a relationship or a communication somewhere in your circle of influence, and it’s publicly visible and going to seed! You’re about to become a-real-deal bonafide “actor” sown by the enemy that Jesus spoke of in the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13:24. Understand the First Responders are on their way. In the mean-time though…

Step One: Hold your tongue. Don’t speak anything.

Because if you do speak, you’ll speak hypocrisy. See, this is why people who try to speak a goodness into their lives, discover such does not succeed. Let me tell you something. The truth of our Father is universal to all of us. And that means such declarations will not work for just one or two people. No, the truth is for everyone. Even for a heathen if he will accept it. There’s no special technique. None of that nonsense! Truth is truth. God calls it hypocrisy when we speak something that’s not internally aligned or revealed. And he forbids it. But we’ve gotten sloppy and do it anyway. So, what do you do when you know you’re harboring an element of the enemy (negativity) inside you? Too often, we talk too much!

Step Two: Turn off all social media (actually advise that forever).

Flee to your Altar or your prayer closet, and get your soul right by Getting on your knees, Confess, Repent, Forsake, Obey, Re-connect to the Vine, Refuel, Refresh, Rejoice, and Consider only the most-worthy alignment/revelation communications.

It does not take a day. It does not take a week. It’s only a decision! You’re either going to accept or not, just like the last time it happened. Only this time you’ve seen the LIGHT, NOW WALK IN IT, thereby accepting the free (and absolutely freeing) help He provides!

BOTTTOM LINE:  Don’t you let your mouth speak until you’re internally synched with the Holy Spirit.

Next UP: Watch Out For The Precursor Of Lust!

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Hung by the Tongue

Let me be absolutely clear! Not one of you can speak death into my life. Not one. And I can’t speak death into your life. But you can speak death into your own life. And I can speak death into my own life.

Do you understand what’s been happening with you? You have been pushing God’s blessings away by the words you continue to repeat and accept in your heart about yourself. Can you see by pushing away the truth of God’s word in your life by allowing even a single thought to take control of your mind and its subsequent actions, that you are now speaking the opposite of the goodness of the Lord in your life. Do you see that? This is a direct assault of evil upon your life!

I am often asked, “Well, how do you fix that?”

The answer is so simple. “Stop doing it!”

See, because if you are studying your Bibles, you know that God has not recanted his blessings over your life. You’re simply resisting a good word over you. Stop resisting. Stop speaking like Charlie Brown. Stop believing your own death. Just know how you speak is what you accept.

May I give you a great caution yet?

Never speak forth anything that does not align with what God has put in your heart & mind.  Don’t do it. Listen to me, don’t do it, no matter what it is. Do not speak what does not align with what God has revealed to you or given to you in your body, soul & spirit, heart, mind, & will.

By you speaking out of alignment or without revelation is indeed the birthplace of the eventual blooming and going to seed possibly becoming a detrimental source or the root of hypocrisy or similar influence to the Matt 13 Parable of the Weeds (tares). And once rooted & blooming, and going to seed, you’ll become an “actor” in the body of Christ, that speaks Satan’s narratives; innumerable variations of darkness & destruction, chaos & confusion.

By speaking in compliance with what Satan, or even other “spiritual persons” expect or desire you to say or promote, that inwardly does not align with the Spirit within you or has not been revealed to you, will then set you up faster than you can imagine as a Charlie Brown puppet. For suddenly you’ll be out in the dark, stumbling around, hungry, lonely, and feeling, NO, not at all just merely feeling, for you will actually be living like the Prodigal Son. Wake up every one! Hypocrisy has consequences!

The MSG version of the Prodigal Son is much more to the point, “Father, I want right now what is coming to me!” And especially so, if you realize the gross disrespect being exemplified in that culture! We just rather gloss over that, don’t we? We being out of alignment, without revelation, and “a single thought from guess who” will start the whole stinkin’ thinkin’ process! God has totally armed you to destroy these petty distractions. Pay attention or you will suffer. Possibly even die!

NEXT UP: The remedy for defunct alignment/ revelation issues….

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Revealing Signs of My Times: BENCHMARKERS?

Since my 60’s I’ve been tracking my physical limitations by noting those physical tasks increasingly requiring I use a ladder to reach, a pliers to grip, a ramp to roll an implement up, etc. Mentally as well, Pastor Karl challenged us years ago to memorize the Fruits of the Spirit, certainly a worthy task for observing the depth/maturity of our current spirituality. Just understand it has been my continual goal for years to quickly rattle off those nine descriptive words with no conclusive success. Only after forcing myself each morning since this New Years before reading my daily Proverbs chapter, have I accomplished this, and that with the crutch of the acronym of first letters L J P P K G F G S! I possess a strange mind indeed! See why I hallucinate at thinking I’ll ever learn Spanish?

So, as we age and become aware of these revealing and distressing benchmarks, we speak of our “new normals,” which are actually our compensations, in my case, too often excuses for laziness, as Loretta lovingly and patiently reminds me. Actually, God has really blessed me in the fact that after reading Scripture as I do frequently, He then inspires a worthy thought or a concept and I begin to write, and just as the MSG Gal. 5:22 below says that “fruit appears in an orchard,” thus far at least for me, my thoughts appear on the screen. Never mind, how slow they appear, or how long I struggle for particular words, etc.

FYI, I do understand that crossword puzzles and even writing are worthy deterrents for my innocuous less threatening terminology for my brain fog, “new normal” or not! However, I passionately avoid puzzles, both crossword and jigsaw. I presume it’s an expression of a genetic anabaptist workaholic modified gene?

BOTTOM LINE: Reading through Galatians this Sunday, though scuttling my walk, I was greatly encouraged by the directness and the simplicity of Paul’s encouragement to us from Ch 6:9-10 to utilize His resources before our individual & cultural benchmarkers will be removed by the sands of time, actually, even the planet:

9. So, let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.

10. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

Galatians 5:4, 13-26 (MSG)

4. I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace.

13. It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows.

14. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.

15. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

16. My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness.

17. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.

18. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

19. It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness;

20. trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits;

21. the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

22. But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,

23. not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.

24. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

25. Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.

26. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Galatians 6:1-10 (MSG) 

1. Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out.

2. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law.

3. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

4. Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others.

5. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

6. Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.

7. Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—

8. harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.

9. So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.

10. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

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Birth of Hypocrisy: Our Unhinged Tongues

I grew up as a child knowing that even before our births, God had already spoken blessings over our lives. It really makes me wonder now how I as a child could grow up in such a loving Christian home with literally a spiritual silver spoon in my mouth, be known as a “favorite son” of sorts, and yet, spend so many years as a blasphemer in the church?

Strange introduction perhaps, but it’s the truth, and the title “Birth of Hypocrisy” does set the stage, whether for me, or the church. Perhaps hypocrisy is learned in stages, like language. We have both experienced and observed the ease of learning becoming a negative person, likely from the Father of Lies.

The idea of the quantity or scale of negativity we’ve spewed forth verbally, whether private or public, since we learned to talk or cobb an attitude, is really immaterial. Sometimes negativity is directed at or of very specific intention, but when the chips are down, negativity will abound!

Given that common denominator, we as Christ Follower’s know well that our Lord and Savior has, and is, speaking a Fullness over our lives, but too often, we’re the ones, intentionally or not, literally being goaded into rejecting either His blessings or our Fullness, such that, when we look in the mirror, we’ll tell ourselves, “I knew I was no good at this. No good ever comes to me, no matter how hard I try. I’m always just missing everything up.”

When you go into that Charlie Brown mode, you are renouncing what God spoke over you. First, you must understand, you’re the only one that ever has a right to reject the intimacies the Father has spoken over you. Nobody else has that authority. Absolutely nobody!

Next, be aware there are things happening around you attempting to trick or confuse you into speaking against what God has spoken over you. Satan’s minions are continually attempting to get you to renounce the goodness your Father has spoken over your life. If and when that is accomplished, and darkness gets the better of you, you’re going revert into the Charlie Brown mode, and you’ll begin saying, “What’s the use? No good is coming to me. My life is always going to be like this.”

Saying phrases like that, confirms you’re speaking words opposite of your Father, literally destroying His intimate words of destiny for you! That’s what evil has been doing in your life. Can you see that? Because every time evil gains another stronghold area of influence in your life, what do you end up doing? You end up “getting hung by your tongue” rendering the blessings of the Living God in your life in-effective.

Consider KJV Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” or the MSG, “Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit – you choose,” bringing forth encouragement, love, & healing, OR causing hurt, division, & destruction.

NEXT UP: Hung by the Tongue

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BBF March 30 Romans 7:1-4 – Married To Christ

Taken from the boquetebiblefellowship.com website, audio sermon archives. Tuesday’s post was the prior Sunday’s sermon that was a review of the first six chapters of Romans. that began earlier in 2023 and concluded in December ’24. The study questions were actually sent me today for the 9 AM Friday Men’s Ministry in the morning and I included them to guide and facilitate your understandings during and after listening. I am suggesting this sound track is a rare find for your study at the opportune time. In the meantime however, you can better visualize this sermon’s important landscape’s benchmarks while listening in a tractor cab or driving to your appointments, etc.

May God anoint your time of listening and study.

Romans 7:1-4 – Married to Christ Questions

1.) Can anyone tell me what Jewish legalism means?

2.) What does the term “hyper grace” mean?

3.) Did Jesus come to abolish the Law of the Prophets? Or did He come to maintain it?

4.) How difficult was this for the Jews to accept?

5.) What about the gentiles? How confusing was this for them?

6.) Would it be valid to ask these same questions today? Why?

7.) What is the Moral Law of God?

8.) Does the Mosaic Law have any power to save us?

9.) What was the purpose, or the goal of the Mosaic Law?

10.) So why do you suppose God set things up this way?

11.) What does it mean to bear good fruit? And how does this come about?

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Ever Had A Randomly Encountered Scripture Flood Your Day With His Foundational Joy?

A few minutes ago dailylightdevotional.org last verse of the AM verses sent me scrambling to I John 3 for context to better comprehend what v. 21 meant when it said “Beloved, if our heart condemns us not, then have we confidence toward God.” Really now? Is that even possible? For our hearts not to condemn us?

Succinctly, I’ve spent decades being condemned by the flip-flopping of either my conscience or Satan, etc., declaring me “unworthy” in all dimensions, terrorizing and holding me captive in my addictive sins. I am so reminded of the landmark verses in II Cor 7:10-11 “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow (merely being sorry) brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.”

So imagine now, after years of being blessed walking empowered by the Spirit, the burst of joy the II Cor 6 chapter provided me Monday morning that I posted Tuesday morning,

And then this morning, while yet basking in these prior occurrences, I encounter v. 21 which opened the gate for the verses below. Amazing truths revealed afresh for me, hopefully for you as well. Give God the Glory!

1 John 3:13-24 (MSG)

  1. So don’t be surprised, friends, when the world hates you. This has been going on a long time.
  2. The way we know we’ve been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn’t love is as good as dead.
  3. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don’t go together.
  4. This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.
  5. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.
  6. My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love.
  7. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality.
  8. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.
  9. And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God!
  10. We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, doing what pleases him.
  11. Again, this is God’s command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command.
  12. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

GO FORTH TODAY WITH JOY FOR AS LONG AS YOU’RE GIVEN BREATH TO LIVE RENEWED & EMPOWERED BY HIS SPIRIT.

True joy comes from our connection with God, not from life’s circumstances. We are called to rejoice even in adversity, trusting His presence. Contemplate Phil 4:4-9.

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Have I Been Lulled Into The State Of “Squandering?”

Earlier we’ve been encouraged at BBF here in Boquete, Panama, to read the 121 chapters or so from Romans thru Jude several times this year. Why? Because in my words, they are the portion of our owner’s manual that is not predominately historical or prophetical. Rather, these books in your Bible are those pages for example, you’d find in the owners manual for your new 70 foot sailboat, or possibly, even your Lear jet, (I chose those two examples specifically rather than your car) to set the stage for most of us to realize that just as we are clueless to a practical working knowledge of all the physical dynamics involved in either sailing or flying, I maintain that similarly, we largely as newly recruited Gentile believers, have not yet a clue for the actual mind of God for the specifics as how to practically build His kingdom.

Oh, we know the stories, and much of the history, but for us to troubleshoot the electrical diagrams of the sensors for the autopilots whether sailing or flying depending on weather conditions, I compare that lack of practical experience similar to what today’s believers may face, be they new or long term, in that they have not yet applied due diligence to understanding and applying either His Scriptural or Spirit infused wisdom and guidance practically in the “nuts & bolts of LOVE engineering ” for building His kingdom. And that is exactly what these Romans to Jude books excel at, so drink deeply!

For example, v. 11 “how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way.” Ouch! Or, V. 14 “Don’t become partners with those who reject God” & v. 17 “So leave the corruption and compromise…”

This has been the most fulfilling & rewarding Bible reading suggestion yet for me, and this is my second time thru already. Frequently, I just keep reading, get inspired, and send clips to friends, etc. I’m using my NIV/Message Parallel Bible for this; principally from NIV, but frequently the inspirational clips are from the Message because it is not familiar to many.. Enjoy.

2 Corinthians 6:1-18 (MSG) 

  1. Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us.
  2. God reminds us, I heard your call in the nick of time; The day you needed me, I was there to help. Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped.
  3. Don’t put it off; don’t frustrate God’s work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we’re doing.
  4. Our work as God’s servants gets validated—or not—in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly . . . in hard times, tough times, bad times;
  5. when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating;
  6. with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love;
  7. when we’re telling the truth, and when God’s showing his power; when we’re doing our best setting things right;
  8. when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted;
  9. ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die;
  10. immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.
  11. Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life.
  12. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way.
  13. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!
  14. Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark?
  15. Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?
  16. Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God’s holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way: “I’ll live in them, move into them; I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people.
  17. So leave the corruption and compromise; leave it for good,” says God. “Don’t link up with those who will pollute you. I want you all for myself.
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Remember, Yesterday We Ended With Jesus Poised To Speak Truth To This Dear Woman:

“ I who you speak to am he.” (v. 26)

Jesus did exactly what she expected the Messiah to do… he told her all things. Sometimes even without saying everything, our God addresses all things. Be still my heart. Our Christ, the anointed one, often answers our questions about worship by telling us the truth about ourselves. In one fell swoop, he exposed foolish traditions and cuts away human reasoning with his sword of truth. Who wouldn’t drop their water jar and run after hearing this? That is our Jesus. He doesn’t shame the shamed. He takes them into his confidence and shares with them the noble things the Pharisees (and even his disciples at times) refused to hear.

The moment is over. The disciples return and are troubled by the discovery that Jesus had been talking to a woman who is only worthy of their disdain. But their reception no longer matters to her. Once you have been received by God … what is the rejection of man to you? It is interesting to note that not one of the disciples had invited the Samaritans out to see Jesus. That was okay because Jesus had already sent his messenger. She was the one he had in mind all along.

So, the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him. (vv. 28-30)

On close examination we will find she is intentional with her words. She doesn’t call him a prophet or mention that he is a Jew, knowing that both of these might cause the townspeople to reject him. She uses her own testimony to open the way for them. I love that our friend invites them to come and see rather than suggest they come and hear. Seeing can mean believing, and when your eyes are opened, you want everyone else to see as well.3

I love that Jesus chose to reveal something so preemptive, precious, and holy to a woman who others saw as tainted, common, and soiled. By speaking the mysteries of God to someone others considered the lowest of the low, he threw the door open for all of us. For this very reason, I have visited her story in more than one of my books. I always see their interaction from a different angle, but never with an indifferent heart.

For years I have loved this intimate encounter that made the shamed outsider an ultimate insider. For a time, I even liked the fact that she was nameless; that way I could easily insert my name into her story. That was until I learned to know her by Photina, the enlightened. She started evangelizing that very day in Samaria, but as you now know, her reach extended far beyond the that region’s borders.

Her story shall encourage each of us who are deep wells living shallow lives. What else could possibly explain a wayward woman conversing with a prophet about worship? Her well was not only deep … it was also dry. She’d had five husbands and two sons and yet the longing remained. This woman with huge capacity had poured herself out completely until the very marrow of her bones ached.

Suddenly, it was different. She knew the gift. Jesus had invited her, and she boldly asked for living water. This magnificent Messiah knew her completely and loved her unreservedly. So, at his invitation this daughter without rival drank deeply of his living water and went on to become Photina, evangelist and apostle, who walked into danger with unshakable resolve.

BOTTOM LINE:  Woman with a past, will you follow her lead?

NEXT UP:

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Really Now, Can You Imagine Being Five Times A Failure?

This woman is so broken now that she is willing to live with a man whom she shares a bed but not a name. Her life is consumed by appetites that refused to be satisfied. Her spirit is broken but yet she hopes, as evidenced by her statement to Jesus in John 4:19 continues: “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.”   

Prophets were also referred to as seers. Everywhere Jesus went he opened up eyes of understanding. When she chose to view Jesus as a prophet, she looked to her future and asked Jesus where she should worship. I can only imagine she was weary of her old life with its old ways. She had no way of knowing that a new hour was upon her that would redefine worship as a person rather than a place.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is now coming when neither on this mountain or in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” (v. 21)

In The Passion Translation, the Aramaic opens this verse up a bit further for us with:

Believe me, dear woman, the time has come when you won’t worship the Father on a mountain nor in Jerusalem, but in your heart.

 She honors Jesus as the prophet he truly is, and in return Jesus calls forth what she truly is, dear. This term means “beloved and cherished, prized, precious, and priceless, valued and treasured.” I have to wonder how long it had been since she had been called by any term of endearment. He was rebuilding her broken heart and wounded spirit with words of destiny.

Even now I hear Jesus inviting each and every one of his daughters, “believe me, my valued, treasured, and loved woman, your time has come …” Your time to believe is now. Pause a moment. What has he whispered to your soul?

Our God is not closest to you on a mountain, in a city, or even a church. No individual can keep you from his presence. Thankfully, no mistake can separate you from what abides within you. Jesus awaits your worship at the well of your heart. The Scriptures remind us that our God is as close as a whisper:  

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” (Rom 10:8)

Jesus shared this revolutionary concept with a woman at her lowest. Who had ever heard of a God without the limits of location? A God who was willing to meet with her wherever she was? Imagine how wonderful this news would have been to her. She is an outcast from her people and an outsider to the Jews, but God had made a place for himself within the sanctuary of her heart. Just as she had been forthright and revealed who she is, the Son of God is about to be just as open and revealing with her. Her choices had pushed her to the outer limits of life. Jesus invites her in. Jesus goes on to explain:

You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:22-24)

Jesus shatters her traditions with truth. If what this rabbi was saying is true, then she is just the type of worshiper his Father is looking for: those who long to worship both in spirit and truth.

We miss the irony of it because we know and accept all of what Jesus was unpacking as understood truth, but at that moment, these concepts were radical. More than likely she had never hear of God the Father. The Passion Translation of John 4:22-23 reads:

From here on, to worship the Father, is not a matter of the right place, but with the right heart. For God is a Spirit, and he longs to have sincere worshipers who worship and adore him in the realm of the Spirit and in truth.

She could connect with a God who longed. I believe at this very moment she was conflicted with glorious hope in the face of what she had known as an oppressive religion. She is not sure what to believe; her heart is trembling with hope, confusion, and wonder, but the one thing she knows she shares.

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called the Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” (v. 25)

I wonder if Jesus found her childlike faith irresistible. He couldn’t hold the good news of the truth back from her any longer. I picture him holding her gaze as he whispers:

NEXT UP:  I who you speak to am he. (v. 26)

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