Saturday, August 18, 2007

The Living Water: Lesson Seven

"And John bore witness, saying,
'I saw the Spirit descending from heaven

like a dove, and He remained upon Him.

I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize

with water said to me, 'Upon whom

you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him,

this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'"

John 1:32-33

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Hello ladies! Welcome to today's lesson....let's pray:

"Father, I praise Your holy name this day because You have done so much for me. I thank You for the gift of salvation and redemption from my sins. I thank You for Your word in that I can read Your commandments and learn to serve You. I thank You for the gift Holy Spirit which was given to me.

Please forgive me of my sinfulness. I pray that You will cleanse me of my sins against You and renew me today so that I can hear from You.

Please bless each lady reading this study. Bless her life with spiritual blessings. Be with her in her home. Give her a spirit of peace and contentment in her home.

In Jesus' name..........amen."

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Please read:

Gen 33:18-20

In this passage of scripture we find the transition of the patriarchs: Isaac to Jacob.

Jacob builds an altar in Shechem where Abraham built his altar to the Lord in the Promised Land:

Gen 12:6-7

Gen 28:20-22

But now we are going to read what happens when the Lord's people tried to assimilate with the surrounding peoples:


Gen 34:1-13

Because Jacob did not respond to what happened to Dinah, her brothers felt obligated to act....and react to the incident.

Gen 34:14-31

Because Jacob did not handle the defilement of his daughter properly, the covenant of God was threatened. As a result, Dinah's brothers decieved Shechem and his father Hamor...(much like Jacob deceived in Gen 27:35-36)...and used and abused the holy sign of the covenant to do their evil work of vengeance. The sins of the father............

By killing all the males, the brothers did not act justly. Shechem's sin against Dinah did not warrant death.

Deut 22:28-29

Shechem did love Dinah and wanted to marry her. Because Levi and Simeon acted so rashly, they lost leadership and land in Israel

Gen 49:5-7


But because Jacob did not act responsibly toward the rape of his daughter, he was fearful of his sons' action and did not display faith in God.

Gen 34:30

But the Lord remembered His covenant with Abraham and He spoke to Jacob:

Gen 35:1-4

"Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone."

What happened as a result of Jacob's obedience?

Gen 35:5-

God's protection and presence were with Jacob.


We read here how the patriarchs of God's people were not perfect. If Jacob had been perfect, then we would pray in his name....but we do not. We pray in Jesus' name because He alone was perfect.

Jacob sinned here by not following the law and he sinned by having fear instead of faith. But he repented and obeyed.....and continued to have fellowship with the Lord. He continued to be the leader of God's people.

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John 4:12

"Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself as well as his sons and his livestock?"

The Providence of God..........

Here we have Jesus.....the very Promise of God fulfilled, sitting on the well of Jacob in the land that was named after Himself....face to face with a Gentile woman who speaks of her theology and asks a very poignant question:

"Are you greater than our father Jacob?"


We read in Gen 33 about the covenant of God passing from generation to generation and about God's provisions to His people.


As a Samaritan woman, she knew of Jacob from Jewish history, but it was wrong to call him "our father.." because she was not yet part of the covenant with God.

The fact that she venerated Jacob and the well was graced over by God. Sometimes we find that our ignorance isn't held against us by the Lord (Matthew Henry commentary). I remember many times misquoting scripture to people when trying to witness to them or forgetting books of the Bible while working with youth groups at church. It was humiliating! Yet the Lord still used me to some capacity in my ignorance. He looked passed it.

Jesus was greater than Jacob, as we read earlier, but not only was He going to reveal Himself to her as "greater than" but as The Greatest of All.

Jesus was going to take away the sins of this woman, welcome her into the covenant she had heard about in Jewish history, and then use her for His greatest works of all.


"Are you greater than our father Jacob....?"

She would soon be able to answer her own question!

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Life Application

"...upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining........"



In the opening verse above, we find John the Baptist speaking of his witness to the baptism of Jesus Christ.

God gave a clear signal to all just whom was His son: the one who has the Spirit.

The gift of the Holy Spirit is what enable us to see Jesus as He really is. John's eyes were opened as he saw the dove descending from the heavens. The Samaritan woman's eyes will soon be opened at the well she used to draw water from without significance. Imagine how her well-drawing-days will be afterwards!!

Our understanding of who Jesus is affects our testimony. How we see Jesus is how we will describe Him. In my youth, I thought I knew who Jesus was. I loved Him dearly. I wanted to tell others about Him often. I saw Him as a kind, loving, Savior of my life who saved me from my sins.


I never saw Him as God though. I saw them as separate, yet equal parts of the Trinity. It never occurred to me that Jesus was God then and is God now. In my early Christian walk, it wasn't revealed to me that Jesus was in the Old Testament as well as the New.

God didn't reveal this to me until I was in my 30's. From 15 until 30 I was wrong theologically! Yet in my ignorance, the Lord still used me from time to time. After He revealed more of Himself to me in scriptures, He was able to use me more and more.

Now I can read the Bible and see Jesus in Genesis and in Habakkuk and in Isaiah. What a thrill it is now to read these books inlight of all this revelation!!

Even though I was in ignorance, Jesus used me. He can use our testimonies to lead or draw others to Himself. But we need to make sure our preceptions of who He is are accurate:

Please read:

Ps 113:4- Lord above all nations

John 1:29 - Lamb of God

1 Cor 8:6- One Jesus, One God

1 Tim 2:5- One Mediator

1 Tim 6:15- Sovereign

James 4:11-12- Judge

1 John 2: 1- Advocate

1 John 3:5- Sinless


This is the Jesus whom we serve and worship. As Christians, now we are the ones "upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining...."

Do others see Christ in us?? Is it that obvious like a dove descending from heaven and remaining upon us?

Spend some time today getting to know Jesus a little better.........

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Until next time...........


"Touching His divine nature, Jesus was clearly omniscient. Touching His human nature, however, He was not. Jesus learned things. There were some things He declared He did not know. We see this clearly in Mark's Gospel: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32). It is both possible and necessary for us to distinguish between the divine and human natures of Christ. For example, when Jesus was hungry and when He sweated, these were manifestations of His human nature, not His divine nature. God does not eat. God does not sweat. However, though it is necessary to distinguish the two natures of Christ, it is equally necessary that we neither divide nor separate them."



-Dr. R.C. Sproul



(The Glory of Christ, 1990, p. 47)





Blessings,



Ruth































































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