Yesterday, we celebrated Mother's Day at church and later had a nice time celebrating my wife and mother of my three children, Ashley Forshee. It was a special day. During the worship service, Ashley and I interviewed six moms in our church. They all did a great job and shared pearls of wisdom with our church family and the many guests who were watching online.
I also preached a brief message on
John 4 about the lady famously known as "the woman at the well". I have studied this text thoroughly and even wrote a chapter about her encounter with Jesus in my book,
For the One. But as I prepared this message, I realized that most of us easily remember her negative past more than we recall her positive impact on so many after she came to Jesus for salvation.
Unfortunately, that is all too often the case. We are quick to remember someone's faults and indiscretions and may hold those against them even though God has forgiven them. We say we have forgiven them, but deep down, we have not. Do you have anyone in your life who, when you hear their name or see their face, your initial reaction is not positive but rather negative or even resentful? If so, ask the Lord to help you overcome this unforgiving, negative reaction. One of the things I have found that helps me is simply to pray for that person. It is hard if not impossible to be upset and resentful against someone if you are praying for him or her!
Yes, the lady in
John 4 had a rough past and a troubling present when she met Christ. She had been married five times, and the man she was currently living with was not her husband. But after Jesus saved her and she drank of the living water of eternal life, everything changed for her. She went from being isolated at a well to telling the people in the city, "He told me everything I ever did!"
It is amazing to me to think how quick God is to forgive us when we sin. Instead of holding our sins against us, or making us pay, He simply forgives when we come sincerely asking for His pardon for our iniquities. It amazes me how slow we as human beings are to truly forgive and think the best of people. We have no right to withhold forgiveness and certainly no right to punish people if they ask us to forgive them.
What a wonderful story! Jesus Christ came to seek and to save the lost, according to
Luke 19:10, and that is precisely what we see Him doing in
John 4. This woman with a shady and checkered past is made clean and totally justified by Jesus. She experiences the grace of God and becomes an evangelist for God. Instead of us referring to her as "the woman at the well", perhaps we should be calling her "the wonderful evangelist who witnessed for Jesus"!
Ask the Lord to help you be more like Him. Let us be quick to forgive and think the best of others, not the worst. Keep in mind, this is exactly what God does toward you if you know Him.
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