Minister Anthony Miller
John 4:7-15 (NIV)
*If Jesus is going to be anywhere, he ought to go to a place where people are lost and left out, disinherited, disenchanted, and dismissed. He goes where the need is, and there is nothing more promising or secure when the savior of the world decides that he needs to be somewhere. Whenever he decides he needs to be somewhere, whatever that somewhere is, something happens, the blind starts seeing and the lame start walking, the deaf start hearing, and the dead start walking. When you were sick and their were no answers you only got well because one day you got a savior that decided he needed to be there. Aren’t you glad you serve a God who’s only need is to meet your need when you were in need, and he too was in need to be next to you.
*Jesus had to walk through Samaria and not around it. He wouldn’t be Jesus if he walked around trouble, pain, sickness and disease, sadness and suffering. Jesus walks right to where the problem is. He walks right into your messed up situation and shook that thing back to life. He’s not scared of anything or anybody he’ll walk right into it and shake that thing. He doesn’t sidestep your situation, others may have, but he loves you so much that he walks right into what your problems are.
*You want to belong and be needed even if it’s just one person you want to feel like you play an important role. You often wait for God but think about the times that God must wait for you. When you were doing what you were doing, God was somewhere waiting for you. Thank God he waited for you. People gave up on you, said you couldn’t do it, or you couldn’t be saved, but you serve a God that is bold enough to wait for you. Grace and mercy look like God waiting for you. God will wait for you to get it together and then cover you.
*Jesus waits for the church to leave to have an honest encounter with you without judgement. Sometimes God will remove people so he can get closer to you, and don’t be shocked by who he moves so he can have a closer conversation with you.
*When you don’t feel necessary, you look for a reason to not be blessed, to not receive the miracle. You don’t want to be judged based on your decisions, you haven’t felt grace or extensions of love, so you cannot fathom what a miracle looks like. When you’re in a depth of darkness, the smallest sign looks strange to you.
*You are the cup that Jesus wants to pour into you, and because you can never draw more than he can pour, you should just let him have his way. Drawing takes energy and strength, but you can run out of that. It’s possible to lose all that you’ve worked for, but if you let God pour and stop trying to draw for yourself, you’ll see that he’s trying to pour into you things that are eternal. Jesus is your satisfaction. You want the well and God is giving you a spring. The well is beneath you and a spring in front of you and you’re walking away from it. You have a tendency to fall in love with the well and forget the spring. You’re attracted to well water which is just fresh enough. It’s not the best but it’s fresh enough, good is the enemy of great. When you have something good you start thinking that’s exactly what God has for you, when there are higher and better things for you than the well. How many well relationships have you been in? How many well people have you loved? It was fresh enough; it was good for a time. The well is not what you want, but it’s fresh enough. God wants you to have some issues so that he has something to work with. Your bad decisions and imperfections are God’s materials to build you into what God wants you to be.