Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Living Water: Lesson Thirty-Two




"Hear the word of the Lord, O nations,


And declare it in the isles afar off, and say,
'He who scattered Israel will gather him,
And keep him as a shepherd does his flock,'
For the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
And ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he,
Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion,
Streaming to the goodness of the LORD-
For wheat and new wine and oil,
For the young of the flock and the herd;
Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden,
And they shall sorrow no more at all."
Jeremiah 31: 10-12
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Hello again, let's seek the Lord........


"Father, may You be blessed this day for all that You have done for Your people. We are unfaithful to You, but You are faithful. You have taken us like a shepherd and gathered us together to Your bosom where we are safe. I praise You and thank You for providing us with a well-watered garden where we will have no more sorrow at all.


I seek forgiveness of my sins because I know that I have sinned against You. I have turned to my own ways more times than not and have had anxieties when I should have trusted in You. I pray You will forgive me and cleanse me of my sins.
I pray for each woman reading this study. I pray that she will seek Your face this day and surrender her life to You daily. I pray for her children and her husband that they may see that she had been with You today. I pray for a peace in her home and the Holy Spirit to be welcome there.
in Jesus' name............amen."
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John 4:38




"I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors."





In our last lesson, we looked at how the Lord uses us to reap the harvest. He includes us in His works here on earth. We cannot convert anyone to Christianity, but God can and does. It is not of man who wills it, but of the Lord's mercy.
Here, Jesus is explaining to His disciples that they are about to enter into a field ripe for harvest in which they did not labor.....the woman at the well and Jesus labored together in this field. The words of Jesus sowed seeds and the woman took those words and sowed somemore. As a result, the disciples were witnessing how the woman took Christ's words and her testimony to bring others to Jesus.
In the Old Testament, the prophets were often sent ahead to prepare the people for the coming Messiah.


Please read:



Is 26
Is 28:16-19
Is 32:1-8
Prophets were sent to warn the people to heed the word of the LORD:
Jer 44:1-30
Here we have the word of the Lord coming through Jeremiah to the Israelites who were worshiping other gods and disobeying the Lord. The men of the city were being overtaken by their wives. It was feminism all over!
Jer 44:15-16
They bluntly told the Lord they would not listen to Him. So, of course, the Lord punished them.
In the New Testament, we have John the Baptist coming before Jesus to prepare the way for people to receive the Messiah:
John 3:1-36
Now we have Jesus in John 4 preparing Samaria to receive Him. He mercifully delivered the Samaritan woman from the "bitter waters of the curse" and released her from her bondage. Then He prepared her for her ministry by telling her how to worship God and who worships God. Finally, He reveals Himself to her and she is forever changed.
Now, the disciples were about to step into that field to harvest, but the Lord wanted them to know that they were not in this alone. They were going to partake of the joy and splendor of seeing souls come to Jesus, but others labored in this field: Jesus and the Samaritan woman.


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Life Application


"...others have labored...."


Rarely does any person come to a knowledge of Jesus by a single person's labor alone. Most conversions happen after hearing the Gospel message many times before they ever surrendered to Jesus as their Savior. Usually, there were many obstacles that were overcome and much prayer time invested in a person's conversion.
Let's look at a situation in the Gospel of Luke in which a man was brought to Jesus for healing:
Please read:



Luke 5:17-26


"Then, behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst of before Jesus."
The man was paralyzed, therefore he was dead weight. I don't know if any of you have ever lifted a person who was paralyzed or was dead weight, I haven't, but from talking to people who have, it is quite a task! My mother, a nurse, has had several hernias in her nursing career just from lifting patients alone. It isn't easy to lift someone, yet these men brought the man in his bed to the Lord.
Imagine how hard it was to do this task.
When they could not bring in the man because of all the people in the house, they went up on the roof with the man in his bed and found a way to lower him in to lay before Jesus.
Imagine....again....how hard this was to do.
As Christians, we know non-believers whom we pray for daily. Sometimes it seems like such a task to lift these people up in prayer day after day. But stop and think for a minute those who actually bring non-believers to Jesus for healing all the time. They overcome obstacles, like crowds or rooftops, to get these sinners to Jesus for healing because they understand what it means: deliverance from God's wrath.
We see sin as a "free will" issue in our day. But in Jesus' time, they saw any affliction at all as a punishment from God for their sins. They had a great fear of God. They had not heard from Him for generations....and now this Man had come and was doing things that they had read about in scriptures: healing and forgiving.
These men brought the paralyzed man to Jesus for the forgiveness of his sins:
Luke 5:20
"When He saw their faith, He said to him, 'Man, your sins are forgiven you.'"
When He saw their faith. Jesus didn't comment on the man's condition.....He saw the faith of his friends and what they went through to get their friend to Him because they knew....they just KNEW Jesus would forgive there friend.
Luke 5:25-
"Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God..."
Let us never forget that sometimes bringing others to Christ is WORK. It is inconvenient and laborous. But it is always rewarding no matter what happens.
I once took it upon myself to help a woman I had met in the prison after she was released. I helped collect donated clothing for her so she could find a job. I would pick her up and take her to church. I would help her run her errands. I would counsel her for hours. I helped her get a job at our church at the time. It was hard work to do all this and at many times inconvenient.
Yet I wasn't doing it for her at all. I was doing it for the Lord. That made it all worth it.
I labored. I did not receive any reward for that labor. Yet I know, I will receive my reward when I see Jesus.
Do the work of the Lord. Overcome obstacles to bring sinners to Jesus.
Remember, there were many people praying, and working, and overcoming obstacles for you to come to Jesus......
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Until next time....
"This righteousness of Christ imputed to men is like that tree of life (Revelation 22:2) which bore various manners of fruit, and that every month, and whose leaves were for the healing of the nations. This tree of life is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by His merit and Spirit, converts heathens into saints, and makes saints bring forth the saving fruits of righteousness."
-Obadiah Grew (1607-1689)
(The Lord Our Righteousness, 2005, p. 100)
Blessings,
Ruth

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