2018 Weekly Devotional - Week 11

Week 11

"Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him."

    Back in 1991 I attended my ten-year high school reunion. It was great to see everyone and reminisce about our high school years. As you can imagine some looked just like they did in high school while others had changed a lot. One of my classmates pointed out another classmate and asked me if I knew whom it was. I had no idea who the guy was but I would not have wanted to mess with him. He was ripped from head to toe and had that military bearing about him. When my classmate told me whom it was I could not believe it. From the time we were in elementary school Joey (not his real name) was always small for his grade. He wasn’t very good at all in sports and was often the last one picked for teams. As a result, Joey became the team manager from the time we were in junior high through high school. Joey was often teased, ridiculed, and bullied. Nobody was picking on Joey now! Joey had joined the military after high school and had obviously grown up. Joey had fought in Desert Storm as part of front line unit in which he manned a .50 caliber machine gun mounted to a dune buggy. Their mission was to find and destroy the enemy. Of all the guys in my class, Joey would have been the most unlikely pick for a Desert Storm veteran.

    The woman Jesus engages at the well had had a rocky life. Married multiple times, shacking up with a guy that wasn’t her husband, she was an ethnic, moral, and religious outcast. Yet this woman after encountering Jesus had been transformed. Talk about an unlikely agent! I am quite sure that no one would have picked this woman to be a witness for the Messiah! No one would have picked her to witness to the Samaritans. Jesus wants to use us as well to witness for him. It is not a matter of what we were, but who we are in Christ! Perhaps you think that you have too checkered a past to be used by Christ. Do not believe that lie! Because you have encountered Jesus, all your past sin has been redeemed and God can and will use it for his glory!

In Christ,

John