Something else to reflect on during these days of Awe.
Do we have a current, up to date testimony? Has the Lord done anything recently in our lives that we want to tell to people about(exciting and out of the ordinary)? Something that stirs us and gets our juices flowing?
John 4, the story of Jesus meeting with the unnamed Samaritan woman at the well near Sycar has always intrigued me. The chapter begins with Jesus leaving Judea because, ‘the Pharisees heard Jesus was gaining and baptising more disciples. When the Lord learned of this, He left Judea and went back once more to Galilee’. Jesus left Judea and the Jews and headed back, via Samaria, to Galilee. Jesus was called to minister to Jews(I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel Matt 15:24), but on this one occasion He stopped at a Samaritan town and broke just about every religious tradition imaginable.
Jesus met a Samaritan woman, whom no Jew would have dared talk to, at the hottest time of the day and asked her to give Him a drink. She was taken aback by the request. There followed a conversation on two levels, natural water and spiritual water, the water of Life. Jesus eventually told her directly that He was the Messiah, something He wouldn’t do for the religious Jews! She believed Him(after He gave her an accurate word of knowledge) and went back to the town and told the people.
Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the WOMAN’S TESTIMONY (personal experience carried real authority), “He told me everything I ever did”. And because of His words many more became believers. John 4:29,31,41
Jesus spoke to this one unknown woman and through her many people in this single Samaritan town became believers. He left Judea, even though He was fulfilling His calling there and ‘baptising and making disciples’.
Could the reason that many of us don’t have exciting up to date testimonies be that ‘we haven’t stepped out of the boat’? We haven’t left our normal everyday situations and done something different, WHERE WE REALLY NEEDED THE LORD TO COME THROUGH FOR US. God always honours Faith and this may be a time when He’s calling us to do something that we can’t fulfill in our own strength. I believe we are living in exciting days and that the power of God is going to be manifest, probably in growing darkness, more powerfully than ever before. Please take courage and seek the Lord for new bold steps in our lives in this New Year. God has more for all of us, make the decision to follow Him and have a testimony for our lives.
May the Lord bless and keep us as we step out for Him.