Establishing Relationships

 

    Jesus is all about relationships.  He initiates them.  He establishes them.  He builds on them.  He set healthy boundaries on relationships.  He teaches why we need relationships and how to respect them. so that they will grow and thrive.  Jesus is the God that is over relationships through salvation.

    The Gospels tie into each other.   They support each other even when they may vary in different details.  There is a reason why John was saved for last.  He was an apostle that understood that having a relationship with Jesus is the only way to Heaven and he tried to explain it like Jesus.  His perspective highlights the other three gospels through the Heaven perspective.

    Once day Jesus was at Jacob's well in Samaria.  Jews did not associate with Gentiles and Samaria was a Gentile nation.  They considered Samarians like unclean animals.  It was the middle of the day while Jesus sat at the well with no cup when a Samarian woman approached.  Jesus made sure that this encounter would happen, but she was clueless.  Women got their water in the morning before it got hot.  It was midday, she was not expecting to meet anyone and yet she met the man that would change her heart.

    Jesus had sent his disciples to get food.  He could have done it himself, but then he would have missed his purpose of being there that day at that time.  She probably would not have approached the well with all the men there.  She would have waited until they were gone because she was an outcast.  That made her vulnerable.  If she was in trouble, the she would have been on her own.

    The woman was surprised when a Jewish man talked to her.  There was a difference in appearance between a Jew and Samarian, so she knew by looking at him that he was a Jew.  She was prepared to keep her head down and get her work done as quickly as possible and return home hopefully in peace and quiet.  It didn't quite work out that way.

    Jesus spoke to her about living water. If she drank the water he offered, then she would never be thirsty again.  A woman that had to labor in the midday heat would obviously be interested in how to avoid doing this even another day.  She didn't understand what he was offering, but she wanted it.  All the woman had to do was confess her sins and she would receive salvation.  

    Jesus was offering salvation to everyone, not just the Jews.  Jesus taught redemption, salvation, and true love to the woman that day.  He gave her what she needed to change her life and become respectable again because she had salvation.  The noticeable change in the woman drew other people to Jesus.  It made it where they took what he said seriously.

    God is the Spirit.  To worship the Spirit worship the truth.  The truth was that Jesus worked to feed the soul what it needed to be full.  The world was ready to hear his message.  Today the world still needs to hear his message, it just needs more workers.  The crop is eternal life.  Jesus did the hard part.  The reaping should be easy, but yet people still don't do it for various reasons.  

    Jesus stayed in Samaria two more days to spread his message.  He broke the barriers of bias or prejudice.  Many were saved.  After Samaria, Jesus went to Galilee where a royal official came to Jesus to heal his son.  The boy was close to death.  Jesus was getting frustrated that people only believed in the miracles and not the message.  Jesus healed the son because of the man's faith.  The boy was at least 15 miles away when he was healed.  This ended a phase of Jesus' ministry.

John 4