THE CREDIBILITY CRISIS

GREETINGS IN THE NAME OF JESUS:


There is a story behind each of our lives, and for the most part, that story is never told.  I read a story of a man who was driving along and he noticed a park where a little league baseball game was being played.  The players were so small that they could not really handle the ball well so the man stopped to observe for a while. As he walked up to the fence where they were engaged he noticed the first baseman was just beaming with delight! He asked the little boy what inning it was and what the score was? The boy answered  " It's the first inning, and we are down fifteen runs"  The man said, " aren't you discouraged?"  The little boy said, " We haven't been to bat yet"!  I thought what a good picture of life for us to see. Many times we get this defeated attitude about life before we actually get in a position of scoring points ourselves. Many times it is that simple view from a child that is our answer to our success in life.

  The question is often " How credible are we as Christians when we give up before we even start?" I look at John 4:1-26 where Jesus asks the woman at the well who came to draw water from Jacobs well for a drink of water.  She had gotten used to being treated poorly by Jews because of her experiences in life.  It didn't matter if she believed in God or not because she was a Samaritan woman and the Jews looked down on them for not being of full blood Jews.  She was already down fifteen runs!  John 4:10 " Jesus said " If you only knew who it was that asked you for a drink of water you would be asking for the eternal water of life"  You see this woman was thinking with the mind of the world around her; those who had taught her to think in the terms of what we experience. We tend to think in very limited ways because we are limited as creatures in this life, but we were created to be so much more than we can see here. We are both spirit and body.  When we limit ourselves we often also limit God because we are so tuned into trying to control what goes on in our lives.

 John 4:13 " Jesus said Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life".  The woman asked the question that we all would ask in that situation. Was this a parable or was it actually the truth?  We may ask what this has to do with the topic we have been discussing about being born again?  Why didn't Jesus just give her the living water and be done with it?  It is because Jesus had a real message that He needed for everyone to hear that would impart this living water to everyone who heard and received it.

Jesus was dealing with a credibility crisis at that point that had to be dealt with in the only way it could...with the truth. Jesus said:" God and call your husband and come back"  He wanted the woman to face the truth about her life because He wanted her to get to the point of repentance.

 We often think about our witnessing being based upon how many people accept Christ, but in truth, Heaven rejoices when someone comes to a realization of the need for repentance when they are faced with the stark truth from their lives that they need a relationship with God more than anything else in this life. The Samaritan woman knew the differences in the places they worshipped God much like the differences we have in churches today, John 4:21 but Jesus dealt with it again in truth by saying that "God is a Spirit and His worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth".  Jesus knew the woman had been caught in a system of worship that dealt with man-made differences and it was not one which worshipped in Spirit or in truth. Many of us today are caught up in a similar situation. Every one of us should be asking ourselves if we are also caught in a situation where we are following and worshiping a doctrine and a creed that men have put together for their own comfort or if we are actually seeking after God in Spirit and in truth?  May you richly bless God through your life in Him.



THE UNWORTHY SERVANT