Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” John 4:29
Lord Jesus, I wish I could’ve been present to watch this liberated, grace-saturated Samaritan woman recount the tale of her collision with the gospel—her story of meeting you and coming alive to your great compassion and mercy (John 4:1-42). Water from Jacob’s well was superseded by the water you alone can give—the living water that slakes our death-doling thirst.
You exposed her brokenness and revealed the sinfulness of her sequential affairs. Yet instead of ridiculing her, you redeemed her; instead of condemning her, you cherished her; instead of shaming her, you saved her.
En route to the nations, you brought the gospel of the kingdom into the dark continent of this woman’s heart, and then to her own community. As she stood vulnerable in the public square of her city, she’d never been so free. No more need to pose or pretend. No more need to hide and remain silent. You gave her a voice when you gave her yourself. I wonder if some of the six men with whom she’d been heard her proclaim, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
Lord Jesus, nothing but the gospel can free us for being thoroughly known without fear. Your love is unlike any other compassion, affection and kindness we will ever experience in this life. In fact, your love is better than life itself. We adore and praise you this day as the Christ—the Messiah, the heart-knower, our righteousness from God, our holy lover, our only hope of glory!
You know every vain, foolish, and evil thought we’ve ever conceived; every lustful, greedy fantasy in which we’ve engaged; all our unrighteousness and self-righteousness; our vengeful attitudes and arrogant platitudes. Only you hear every grace-robbing, grandstanding, gossipy word we speak. Only you know the broken cisterns of our choices—our idolatries and adulteries—the many things to which we turn to find life somewhere else than in you. Yet you pursue us, welcome us, and love us, and you are changing us.
What a wonderful, merciful Savior you are, Jesus. Life, temporal and eternal, can only be found in you. We know you only because you know us; we love you only because you first loved us, and gave yourself for us on the cross. Free us to be a people to the praise and glory of your grace. So very Amen we joyfully pray, in your transcendent and transforming name.
