Thought of the Week – Week Beginning the 13^th day of March,  2023

 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10).

Dear Brethren, Grace, Mercy and Peace from God our father be with us all.

This week’s Bible readings focusses on water.  Along with air and food, water is one of the basic necessities of life. Water was there at the beginning of creation with the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of it (Genesis 1:2) and in John 4: 15,  the Holy Spirit is represented by water in John 4:15 – as the Water of life. Medically, one cannot live more than three days without water and we all know how the root of trees can spread over long distances under the ground searching for water to survive.  God, our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer in His Omniscience gave us: Air, Water and Food (plants and animals) freely at creation for our survival and saw that they were good. Humanity given dominion and stewardship over creation, have however, not been able play our part in sustaining creation and today we have polluted air and water and we have food shortages in many parts of the world and even in situations where food is in abundance, it is normally filled with chemicals not good for our health.

In Exodus 17, God provided water for the Israelites when they needed water in the desert and began accusing God of bringing them into the desert to die. Moses their leader, had to show God’s creative ability and omnipotence by striking the rock with his rod thus bringing them water for their physical life. The Israelites were reminded of this provision of water in Psalm 95, so that they never live to forget how good God is. In John 4:10 ( the reading quoted above), water comes up again, but this time a Samaritan woman comes to “Jacob's” well to fetch water and finds Jesus- a Jew surprisingly asking her for water. How could this be? How could a Jew and a man ask a woman of a lower class for water, when Samaritans and Jews do not see eye to eye and are not supposed to be involved any form of interaction? Jesus by asking this woman for a drink was conveying the message that: he has come for all of us irrespective of whether we are Jews, Greeks, slaves, free, male or female. Jesus also conveys to this woman and to us that, physical water will make us thirst again, but the water He gives is “Spiritual Water” or Living Water (or in Greek “zao hydor”) that gives eternal life and we should seek and expend our energy drawing this water into our lives rather than the water which will make a thirst again.   

This gospel passage poses a serious question to you and I and that is: what will we do if we were to encounter Jesus today? The woman at well in Sychar found her encounter with Jesus so life transforming that, she returned to her village forgetting about the physical water she had come to fetch and went to evangelise to her fellow villagers in these words “come, see a man, which has told me all things that I ever did, is this not the Christ?”(John 4:29). This woman tasted and saw that the Lord is good and was therefore was able to evangelise to her fellow men. The result of the her evangelism was: the whole village came from the village to come and see Jesus. It was at this moment that Jesus said: “behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look to the fields they are white already for the harvest”(John 4:35)., meaning the seed or word Jesus sowed in the woman has yielded immediate harvest. A quick harvest of this nature is Spiritual rather than a physical harvest that takes time to happen. The message again from Jesus' encounter with this woman is: we should not delay when we hear God's message but bring it to others to build God's kingdom. We should not delay and allow the devil to steal God's word from us when we hear His word but evangelise it immediately to others, for where ever the word of the King is there is power( Ecc. 8 : 4). The power of God can turn our effort to evangelise no matter how small we think it is, to a great the Spiritual harvest to build His kingdom. Amen

Prayer: Lord, your Word is powerful. Your word is a Spiritual drink which would not make us thirst again but give us life eternal. Help us always to remember our world was created just from your Word and acknowledge your power. We pray Lord that, you will give us the strength to be able to minister your word to those around us and all we meet, so that a great Spiritual harvest will be yielded to build your kingdom here on earth until your return, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Clement Arde-Acquah