Living Miracles of God’s Grace!
Meditation for the week of October 9, 2011
He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria. (John 4:3-4)
Why did the Lord have to go through Samaria on His way to Galilee? Normally, a Jew avoided going through Samaria because while the Samaritans were people with some Jewish blood, they were really a mixed breed of people. They worshiped much like the Jews but in Samaria which was the wrong place to worship according to the old testament. So why did the Lord go where Jews didn’t go to talk to a woman when a Jewish man didn’t normally do that?
The Lord purposely made this trip so He could meet this woman who was seeking the truth. Oh yes, she was a sinner as far as her own people were concerned, and she was born on the wrong side of the tracks as far as the Jews were concerned. However, the Lord knew that she wanted to know what was right. Perhaps her sinful life had caused her to think about her eternal destiny. But whatever the case, the Lord had his eye on her from a far. He knew she was open to the Gospel and wanted “living water.” She had heard that the Messiah was coming and no doubt wanted to meet Him. She was seeking the truth so the Lord sought her. She got her “living water” that day and she went into the city and became an immediate effective evangelist. She told the people in the city, “Come see a man!”
I don’t think we understand how special to the Lord people are who want to know the truth. I don’t think we realize how far He will go to reach them and make them “true worshipers.” He sent Philip from a fruitful work in Samaria to a man from “darkest” Africa who was out in a desert in Acts chapter 8. He personally appeared to Paul who was called Saul on the Damascus road. Stephen had been martyred which caused Paul to think about what he had been doing. Later, the Lord wouldn’t allow Paul to minister in Asia in Acts 16 because he wanted him to end up in prison so he could minister to the jailor in Phillipi. Are these isolated incidents and special cases? I don’t think so. I believe that where there is a person who is seeking there is a loving God who is going out of His way to make sure that person hears the Gospel.
Coming to faith in the Lord is not a casual experience. It is a crisis experience. Those of us who are trusting in the Lord for salvation can go back over our lives and see how we were preserved from harm so we could be saved. Many of us had the privilege of hearing the Gospel that others did not have. But did the others want to know the God of creation, the God who has stirred the conscience of every person born into this world? I believe that some people say, “I want to know God and His salvation.” Those people are treated differently than those who do not care about their relationship with God.
God, knowing our hearts before we are ever born, laid out plans for us in an eternity past. But we still had to personally want to be saved. Thank God, the offer of salvation is universal even though not everyone is interested like this woman was. We are not chosen to be saved but the saved are chosen to be God’s people and to serve Him In special ways. Before we were saved, the Lord intervened in our lives. In a sense, for each of us, the Lord had to go through Samaria. It is encouraging to look back over our lives and recount how far the Lord went for us. Because if we are saved, the Holy Spirit arranged events so that we would be able to hear and believe the Gospel.
Everyone of us who are saved are living miracles of God’s grace. We certainly didn’t do anything to deserve this salvation and yet the Lord put great effort into making sure we are saved. He not only sent His Son to the cross, He sent the Holy Spirit out into the highways and hedges (the other side of the tracks) to find us and reach us with the Gospel.
Surely, we can be thankful that the Lord had his eye on those of us who hungered and thirsted after righteousness.
Bruce Collins