JOHN 4:1-7 – Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

THEME OF THE DAY: CONSTRAINED BY LOVE.  Today’s scripture brings us to the familiar account of Jesus and the Samarian woman at the well. It is loaded with instruction for us from Jesus’s compassion for the troubled woman to the spiritual need of the woman met by Jesus, we find so much to challenge us in our interaction with the lost. But there is one lesson to be learned before these two.

John writes of our Lord’s journey to Samaria . . . “And He had to pass through Samaria.”  Other translations read, “He must need to go through Samaria”, “He had to travel through Samaria”, and “To get there, He had to pass through Samaria.”  As one reads these statements, we get the impression this was the only way through Samaria.  Actually, the relationship between the Jews and Samaritans was so estranged that the Jews traveled AROUND Samaria, not THROUGH to avoid contact.  It was a lengthy detour but to assume the constraint on Jesus going through Samaria was because it was the only route is wrong.  He went then constrained by love; love for a poor and helpless woman at the well who lived a life of shame and sin. The lesson?  Love people. Especially hurting sinful people who need Jesus.  Charles Spurgeon once said, “He who would win souls must first be a lover of souls.”

Unless the love of Christ controls us, we will not carry the Gospel to the lost, sacrificially serve the body of Christ, or reach out to the widows, orphans, and those “thrown away” by society as worthless.  The Apostle Paul would tell us this was the motivating factor and strength for his evangelistic ministry – For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:14-19).

Without the constraining power of Christ’s love, we will not go through our Samarias.  Our hearts will not break for the people at the wells, and there will be no fulfillment of our Gospel mission in our generation.  So, may the Lord constrain us by His love and in doing so, we live with His compassion taking us into our worlds.

PRAYER: “Father, help me be compelled by Your love to go to the lost and share Your Son.”

QUOTE: “When the love of Christ controls Christians, we cannot refrain from proclaiming Him.”

In the affection of Christ Jesus,

Pastor Jim