Title: The Blessing of Meeting the Lord!
Contents
What does a successful life look like? People set their own goals and set their own goals in order to live a successful life. However, it is by no means easy to achieve and succeed one by one in the goals you set for yourself. They want success, but many people experience failure. Why is this happening? Because there is no gospel. We fail because we do not know the gospel, the sure answer to life. The gospel is the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross that solved all problems in life.
But Satan deceives them so that they do not know the Gospel.
1. Satan's characteristic is to lie, deceive, and kill the soul.
(John 8:44) “You are of your father the devil, and you also want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and cannot stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks his own. for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
2. He disguises himself as an angel of light. (Movie, Devil's Edbucket)
(2 Corinthians 11:14) “This is no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”
3. Temptation with material possessions, vanity, and lust. (Crime with credit card debt)
(1 John 2:15-16) 『[15] Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The lust and the pride of life, all not from the Father, but from the world.”
4. Color the dark world of the world.
(Ephesians 6:12) “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers and authorities, with the rulers of this world of darkness, and against the spirits of evil in the heavens.”
Lord, who met a woman in Suga, Samaria in today's text, the opportunity of a lifetime has come to that woman. The Lord met her, who had five husbands, but found the meaning of life and went to the well to draw water for a living in broad daylight, a time when others did not go. You, too, are waiting for our Lord to meet you all the time in your life. However, they did not know the value of the truth because they were not prepared to meet the Lord. Our Lord knew, comforted, and restored her painful past and shameful reality. He restored the life of an abandoned woman to the most beautiful and noble life. Because the Lord loved this woman, it was to help her see and understand her reality.
What was the result of the woman in today's text believing only in her own abilities and working hard? What was the price of such a struggle to seize happiness? Where did the happiness you longed for day and night go? What could she do for her husband, or for herself, as the five husbands left her in turn? is there nothing? There is nothing we can do to meet the Lord. We only come before the Lord with the thirst for the truth and thirst of the soul. Seeing the truth of her life like rags torn in front of the word of the Lord, and her soul that stinks like pieces of a dirty rag, she now asks the root of her inner hunger.
“I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ, and when he comes he will tell us all things” (verse 25).
As soon as she realized that she had nothing to believe in herself, she hoped for Christ. The right realization of his poor reality led to his faith toward Christ, the savior. At that moment, the Lord was standing in front of the woman and said:
“I am he who speaks to you” (verse 26).
The woman met Christ personally. And the woman's life was completely new. Her life was filled with joy, peace, and new life. Most surprising of all, verse 39 tells us that because of this lowly woman, the city she lived in was completely renewed. When a woman realized her humble and miserable reality and humbled herself before Jesus Christ, the Lord poured out the Holy Spirit, like living water, into her heart, and she was transformed into an instrument of the Holy Spirit. We must not forget that unless we are all under the control of the Holy Spirit, our reality is no different from the woman we were before we met Jesus Christ.
The victory of the Lord on the cross is great good news for us, that is, the gospel. For those who believe in the Gospel, all problems in life are solved by the cross.
(Galatians 3:13) “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”
It also brings the full blessings of God. The gospel, the good news, creates a successful life.
(Romans 1:16) “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
You will enjoy this when you acknowledge and accept this fact.
(Romans 10:8-10) 『[8] What then do you say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, which is the word of faith we preach. If you confess and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. [10] With the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”
Therefore, in order to live a successful life as the Lord's children, not a life of failure, we must first meet God (John 1:12). And we must understand the gospel accurately.
(Romans 1:16-17) 『[16] I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and then to the Greek [17] The righteousness of God is revealed, from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous will live by faith.”
“Behold, I stand at the door and wait; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, he will return to him and sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).