John 4 & 5 Your Jesus Encounter

^{Prayer for Today}

Father, I worship you and give YOUR Name the praise. For you alone are worthy of all the praise. I invite you to step in this place and take control. I submit to Your will, Your Word and Way. Holy Spirit direct my steps and guide me on my way. What is it that I can do for You, the Body of Christ and the Kingdom today.

Father, how I pray for our encounters with you to be more about loving and worshiping YOU! I don't won't to only experience you and our relationship through a dreary, droning monologue prayer session. I want rest in your arms, feel your embrace and hear that still small voice that let me know I have been with you. I seek to spend quality time in your presence that ministers to our bond. You have transformed, translated us in a blink of eye and we are desiring to be everything you want us to be now and forever.

Today's Key to Walking in the Spirit 

There is a spiritual key that unlocks the power of relationship building in the Kingdom. Jesus knew this. As we study the Word of God, we understand it is all about relationships and man's capacity to relate. Unfortunately, very few truly know or appreciate relationship matters--truly all relationship do matter. Love is the key. It vital that we learn how to walk in love, administer in love and receive love.

That simple four-letter word has a powerful punch. A punch so powerful it covers a multitude of sins. Think of the Love God has for us. He sacrificed His ONLY Son for people who did not love him. We who learn to love and accept this sacrifice as a gift earn abundant and eternal life. We obtain access to a right relationship-A Kingdom Relationship.  Imagine, we who rejected him are called sons, daughters and heirs. Oh what Love is  that!!!

Thought for Today

This week as I studied and prayed, God revealed a powerful truth to me concerning encounters with Jesus. I studied and read chapters 4 and 5 in the gospel of John. I asked the Holy Spirit to speak and share what was the most significant point that I was to understand. He did just what I'd asked. In those chapters there several different encounters that occurred. The Samaritan woman and her entire Samaritan village, Jesus' disciples, the lame man, Pharisees and the Jewish Leaders. Each encounter with Jesus is remarkably different. 

The Samaritan woman is by far the most significant encounter in that she is completely transformed into a worshiper and an evangelist. Her transformation and evangelistic message converts her  entire village into worshiper. The Samaritan though connect through blood-line and in some small measure knowledgeable of Jewish scripture, and religious belief did not seek out Jesus. It is astonishing that they are ones that are completely transformed. 

The disciples many times are confused and confounded by Jesus' sermons and actions. His disciples were the closest to him.  Note they did not receive this type of complete transformation for some time. After Jesus is murdered, the disciples hid and worried. They only  transformed into worshipers after the resurrected Jesus appeared to them before he ascended to Father. Then they began to understand the power of the Christ whom they had with them the whole time. 

The Pharisees and Jewish leaders encounters with Jesus produced pure and complete hatred on all levels regarding Jesus. They more they saw Jesus do; the more they hated him and plotted to kill him. Odd they spent time devoted to understanding and knowing the scriptures but it availed nothing for them. In spite of, all the knowledge they had about the Word of God they did know God.

Questions: What is your encounters with Jesus producing in you? Have you notice a complete transformation yet?

It is important for us to take notice that all our relationships take this shape. Acceptance & growth; acquaintance and aloofness; acknowledgement and attainment; abhorrence and  alienation. If you are going to build kingdom relationship you must learn to love all despite how they may treat you. That is agape love, the kind of love God sheds on us.

Today's Scripture Readings (Read John 4 & 5)

 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:21-24 NIV)

 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.  And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. (John 5:24-27 NIV)