Looking for you

John 4: ¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

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“Have you ever committed a misdemeanor?” was the scary question on the application. The reason it was scary to me was, I had. I had no money and a pile of parking tickets in a town that would suspend your license for lack of payment. I had to go to work, so I drove and got a huge ticket for driving on a suspended license. Back to the application. I had to answer, “yes.” I got the job anyway.

• Sometimes I want to tell people “It’s not my fault.”
• Sometimes I want to appear righteous in front of people when I really am not.
• Sometimes I want to hide the “truth” so I can appear good.

JESUS confronts the Samaritan woman about her marriage situation. HE may have seen some guy off in the distance, acting like a husband, however husbands act. “Call your husband over” HE said. She told the truth, as painful as it was. “I have no husband” she said. JESUS said “What you have said is quite true.” She was given the opportunity to lie or tell the truth.

• GOD is looking for me in the middle of my sinful state.
• GOD wants a relationship with me before I “clean myself up.”
• GOD is seeking me to have a special relationship with HIM even though I may have many sins.

Truth is hard to admit but worth it. Telling GOD how good  I have been, while complaining that HE hasn’t given me my way is usually a recipe for disaster. GOD wants the truth. HE wants me to worship HIM by telling HIM “I have sinned and need YOU.”

GOD doesn’t need me to be self-righteous. In fact, the more I admit my sins to others, the more others admit their sins to HIM. Truth has given me freedom.

• What sins are you hiding?
• Do you want to appear righteous in front of people so you can hold others to a standard higher than you hold yourself?
• Will you drop the façade and allow GOD to use you in a truthful way today?