Last Sunday God used his people at Risen King Church, and Dr. Rob Reimer, to show me that, like the church at Ephesus I was doing everything right, but had drifted from the Lord. I wanted to return to my first love, so when He said "Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Rev. 2:5), my thoughts went back to 1979 when I first became obsessed with Jesus.
While reading the Bible for the first time, I had come to the story of the Woman at the Well, who meets Jesus in the fourth chapter of the gospel of John. I immediately identified with her. She was interested in theology, and so was I, she had a “past,” and so did I. She was surprised when Jesus spoke with her, kindly but with authority. People from his culture (Jewish) didn’t associate with people from her culture (Samaritan), yet he seemed to know an awful lot about her. She brought up the subject of the Messiah, a prophetic figure in both of their cultures, and said, “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus dropped a bombshell. He declared, “I, the one speaking to you … I am he.” (John 4:26). She left her water jar behind, raced back home and told her people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could he be the Messiah?” (Jn. 4:29). Immediately these Samaritan people made their way to Jesus and urged him to come stay with them. Is it not reasonable to suppose that the woman was with them? I think the reason she left her water jar behind was that she knew she was coming back, hoping to talk with Jesus again. She was obsessed with him and I’m sure that sometime during his two days with the Samaritans, he found time to explain to her more fully what he meant by water that “will become in you a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14) and what it is to “worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:22).
Like the woman at the well, when I chose to believe
who Jesus really is … the Son of God, not just a man, but God who had become a man … I hurried home and told my people in Connecticut about him. I told them
the Bible is true from Genesis to Revelation, and it reveals that Jesus is the
Messiah. The Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament are fulfilled in the
life of Jesus, who we read about in the New Testament. I was obsessed with
Jesus. My audience, at the time, included my brother and his very young son,
who is now finishing his Ph. D in Christian mission.
Like the woman at the well, I also was intrigued by
the fact that Jesus knew “everything I ever did” and he was not condemning me.
He knew my past because he had been there all along. Even when I was too young
to understand what was happening, he was coming after me, leaving the 99,
chasing me down until I was found. Then his Spirit began teaching me things I could never
have learned on my own. He showed me I was never the ‘rugged individualist,’ in
control of my own destiny I had been pretending to be. It was humbling to
realize I could never have fulfilled my childhood dreams, of getting an
education and traveling all around the world, if he had not been working behind
the scenes. I began writing out the lessons he was teaching me, because writing
has always been my best way of communicating with myself, with other people,
and with God.
Even now, as I'm finishing this new post, doing
the things I did at first, he is with me. I’ve returned to my first love. Our Father is always working, he never stops
working !!!
