Wanting More! (The Woman at The Well)

Wanting More! John 4:7-27 (Lessons from the story of The Woman at The Well)

Family, Im sure you will agree with me that there is a need for MORE! When we honestly and completely evaluate our lives from the perspective of our personal Christian growth and overall spiritual effectiveness, we must conclude that any form of satisfaction with respect to achievement or spiritual arrival on any level whatsoever is gross error to say the least. No matter what you are involved in, what you've experienced or what your current personal status is, you do yourself a major dis-service by NOT wanting more... NOT desiring a more progressive experience in life!

When we think about the vastness of God, who He is and what He is capable of, there is no possible way for us to settle on yesterdays accomplishments and victories! We MUST desire, seek, yearn, even grope for MORE... More of God, more intimacy, more power, more effectiveness... MORE!

As we reherse the familiar story of the Woman at The Well, I would like to suggest (4) four KEY things to learn from this Biblical account that will help us see and learn the POWERFUL encounters with God that are intended to give us the "MORE" experience. The truthful reality is simple: God wants ALL of us to have a more progressive experience with HIM through more intimate encounters with Him, and if we can tap into our own inward desire on greater levels, greater levels of God will become our daily dwellings! Let us briefly look at these 4 key areas that will allow us to experience MORE!

#1: The Change of Identity!

"...When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink? (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water....” John 4:7-10

There is so much for us to learn from this Biblical account, but I would like to barrow a few ideas from the text that will help us to see why our Identity needs to change. Notice what the woman said, "...you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman...." In other words, this woman was saying (in essence) there is a particular culture and set of rules that we must adhear to. There is a set factors in our environment that has shaped who we are and how we should live. We must conform to standards that are already set for us to follow. It is us and we are it! There is and should be no compromise whatsoever to the "status quo" or society standards that help us to be who we are. Its our IDENTITY!

You see, when we allow any other outward factors to shape your decision-making ability, it becomes your identity. It becomes YOU! This woman couls have also said, "I am Democratic and you are Republican", "I am African-American and you are White", "I am Poor/Middle-Class and you are Rich", "I am only a high-school graduate and you are an accomplished PHD College Professor" or "I am from the hood and you are from the best part of town."

I would like to suggest to you that we MUST CHANGE our "identity" in order to experience MORE from The Lord, our God! It is a real shame that many of us are in our on way when it comes to our growth and next-level experiences with The Lord. In fact, many of us boast of ourselves by saying, "...this is just the way I am...." We tend to allow ourselves to become satisfied with "who we are", especially when we have assumed a reasonable form of (seasonal) success. We get happy, then comfortable and begin to settle into a "zone" where the drive for more decreases with each passing day!

This "IDENTITY" must change! I love what Jesus said to the woman....

"...If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water...."

You see, there is a huge problem with our NOT experiencing more of God: We can see it or understand it! Jesus said, "...If you knew...." and He also said, (paraphrase) "...If you knew Who I Am...."

My Brothers and Sisters, we can become so caught up and captured by "our own way" that seeing anything different and of higher value becomes nearly impossible! It is therefore our "view of God" (or the lack thereof) that poses the greatest challenge to our encounters with Him! There is something about "knowing" that calls for more knowing! Jesus said, "If you knew the Gift of God... you would ask Him [for more]...." The first KEY to wanting more is NOT in knowing us, but in knowing Him! God knows us better than we do! Therefore, whatever we know about us can NEVER be enough to satisfy us! Let me move on to the second point (or Key).

Not only must we change our Identity, but another vital aspect of our lives must change as well....

#2 The Change of Inability!

"...Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life....” John 4:11:14

This may sound a bit strange, I admit, but when you think about what the text is saying, it becomes clearer to see there is a significant relationship between what "abilities" the woman had here in contrast to the "Ability" of Jesus. Similarly, there is also a case made for what "Inabilities" the woman had verses what she THOUGHT were Jesus' inabilities!

Notice what the woman said, "...you [Jesus] have nothing to draw with and the well is deep...." In essence, she told Him that He didn't have what it takes to do what He said He could do for her! In her mind, she was still captured by her own ideas and belief systems that helped to shape who she was and couldn't see anything or any other way other her own! It should be noted that Jesus already expressed the fact that she didn't know Him, nor The Gift of God and therefore could NOT know what it would take for Him to make good on His promise to give her Living Water!

The obvious inference here is the woman thought Jesus was referring to the water at the bottom of the well. This, of course, speaks loudly to the fact that her vision was limited as well as her inability to see beyond her own logic and what she knew (or thought she knew). It s very interesting to me to see how many of us get so captured by our own "abilities", that we fail to realize that its our "abilities" that has tricked us, when in actualitiy, our "abilities" are really our "inabilities." You see, when dealing with Jesus Christ, the only thing(s) that matter is Him and what He is seeking and/or desiring from us! What He chooses to give has absolutely nothing to do with us, and therefore, can never depend upon us!

To take this further, she not only spoke to what "tools" Jesus didn't have to draw water, but also to the difficulty in getting what was needed without them ["...the well is deep...."]! Initially, there is a great message here regarding how we rely on our own "ability" to get what we need, but equally as important is how we view the issues of our lives with respect to their challenge associated with our "ability" to get what it is we need or seek. WOW! How many of us relate to this personal disposition?

Perhaps you've known people who have graduated from college (maybe even one of the best colleges), secured a high-paying career, live in the best neighborhood and drive the best vehicle - your bank account is never in the red, bills always paid on-time, they shop at the best stores and maybe even share their success with the less fortunate, but thats NOT you! You have to work hard to get your ends to meet! Life doesn't appear to come as easily as it does many others, and because of this, you are increasingly motivated to grind every day to ensure your own personal dreams and ambitions!

What tends to happen in the flow of your struggle and grind is a conformity of sorts to depend on the work that you have done to achieve! You work plenty of hours throughout the week to get, keep and maintain what you've worked hard for, and have somehow become captured by your own work and achievement without even realizing it! You may have even allowed your faith to reduce to the level of your work (or "ability") and like the woman, have become PROUD that you "have what it takes" to get the water that you need our of the well for yourself! You have the tools! You have gotten what you need for a LONG time, and are experienced enough about "life" that you understand how "difficult" it is to get water with the kind of tools you have! Who is Jesus to come into your life and tell you that HE can give you what you have already been getting for yourself? You have the tools, and the experience of life needed to get what you need! You can't see it any other way, but "the way" that has worked for you!

My brothers and sisters, these are the "abilities", that are really our "inabilities" - the tricks that have captured our minds into believing something that keeps Jesus from performing the Miricles of Provision and Change in our lives! We can NEVER and WILL NEVER be satisfied with this kind of life/living! We will ALWAYS have to return to the well to drink again! We will ALWAYS have to depend upon our work, our grind, our own resources to satisfy us (to no avail). We will ALWAYS be thirsty if we choose to build our own lives through natural resources. Look at what Jesus told the woman: "...Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life....” WOW! I can be satisfied from WITHIN? Jesus can make a deposit on the deep parts of me? What a contrast! The woman said the well was deep, but here Jesus is saying that He will give us something that would be "...welling up...." to eternal life! That sounds like its much deeper than the well! Lets move on....

YES! We must FIRST change our our Identity, and secondly, we must change those "Inabilities" that WE THINK cause us to become "able" enough, thus, keeping God out of our lives in increasingly POWERFUL ways! I love my third (3rd) point/key here. It really helps me to see the relational aspect of the text in ways that I have NEVER seen it before!

We need to change our Identity! We need to change our Inability, and thirdly is....

#3 The Change of Intimacy!

"...The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. He told her, Go, call your husband and come back. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, You are right when you say you have no husband. 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...." John 4:15-18

It is important to convey the essential reaction to what Jesus said to the woman! First, she heard Him! She heard something different and more appealing to current experience! She didn't blow Him off by walking away or ignore Him in any way! She may not have known who He was at that moment, but she heard Jesus speak to her life! That is so important to me! In fact, it was important to her! Notice what she said to Jesus: "...Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming back here to draw water...."

In other words, I want a NEW satisfaction! I'm tired of this everyday grind and struggle to make ends meet! I'm sick of the same old routine that seems to wear on me and appears to be getting me absolutely nowhere at all! What happens next in this Biblical account between Jesus and the woman blows my mind and will forever teach me a powerful lesson about the Art of Wanting More of God in my life! PLEASE notice the answer Jesus gave the woman after she asked Him to give her His Living Water. Jesus told her: "...Go, call your husband and come back...." Huh? Do what? Wait a minute! The woman asked Jesus for The Water HE said He would give her, and His answer was what? "...Go, call your husband?!?..." WOW! What an interesting response! Oh but we must look closer into the text...

It is VERY important to understand the clear inference here when Jesus asks the woman to call her husband. The first is the inference of "oneness." The woman was clearly promiscuous at best, which obviously means she gave herself away (sexually) to men who did not belong to her! Frankly, she became "ONE" with them (see 1st Corinthians 6:15-16)! The interesting thing about this is she had a very comfortable attitude about the clear pattern of giving herself to other men! She answered Jesus' question very honestly: "...I have no husband...." Jesus said, "...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...." and this says that she was not only experienced concerning the satisfaction of the well-water, but also concerning the satisfaction of her sensual nature. Now, most today would attempt to hide the facts about sleeping with a man (or woman) that is not their husband (or wife), but not this woman. She didn't seem to care who knew of her lifestyle!

My brothers and sisters, how many of us allow ourselves to get captured by "intimate" moments of enticement - being drawn away and deceived by the lust raging in our flesh? Many of us seek to fulfill an "intimate" God-Ordained desire and inward call for love the WRONG way! So many of us are caught up in relationships that has stolen the intimacy that should have always been reserved for God and God alone! The spiritual truth of this is crucial to understand: Giving ourselves away to anyone or anything outside of God Himself is a clear death sentence!

"...Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?..." Romans 6:16

Let me briefly take this further... Many of us are NOT ONLY giving ourselves away to a person in relational intimacy, but also to "things" such as Money, Material Possession or even their career! Some have given themselves away to various kinds of Addictions, perhaps drug/alcohol addiction, gambling or even food addiction. Others have given themselves away to a different kind of "intimacy" altogether, such as "Control" or the domination of other people. Yes, there are those who are NOT satisfied unless they are controlling other people (or situations where people are involved). I personally call this "The Spirit of Jezebel" - The Spirit of Control (That another study that I won't get into right now).

My friends, to want more from God is to seek Him INTIMATELY! If this will happen, our "Intimacies" must change! Jesus told the Woman, "...Go, call your husband and come back...." In other words, you can't have the Living Water (Intimacy) that ONLY Jesus can offer when you are "Intimate" with someone or something else! IT MUST CHANGE! NO ONE can serve two masters! (Matthew 6:24). We can't be intimate with God and something else outside of Him, unless it is something HE establishes! "...Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it...." Psalm 127:1 "...What God has put together, let no man put asunder...." Matthew 19:6

Do you want MORE of God? PLEASE be clear! I didn't ask if you wanted more FROM God, but more OF HIM!?!?

My friends, our Identity must change! Secondly, our Inability must change! Thirdly, our Intimacy must change, but there is one other point/key I'd like to share with you from this Woman at the Well story! Finally....

#4 The Change of Intensity!

"...Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Woman, Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth...." John 4:19-24

What the Woman said here I find very interesting. First, she notices something especially different about Jesus that immediately showed her that He was NOT an ordinary man! The interesting thing about this to me is how she begins to defend who she is and her personal history in relationship to what she has perceived of Him. Can't you see it? She is not only caught up and captured by her own lifestyle, but begins to defend herself and her history as if Jesus was mounting an attack against her! The reality of the situation is that she was defending her "culture" moreso from the historical strife that has existed over many years between Samaritans and Jews. Herein lies the problem however!

You see, the Samaritan People worshiped idols and false gods, but this was NOT the foundation of their history. Jacob, who first worship in this land and built the Well there prior to giving it to his family, was a Man of God who worshiped with intensity in this very place where Jesus and the Woman were talking (see Genesis -Chapters 32 & 33).

The Woman was NOT defending the life or traditions of Jacob, but moreso the "culture of the Samaritan People." I believe this to be true from what Jesus said to her (which I will talk more about in a minute). Isn't it interesting, however, that this Woman begins to defend her "culture" and (by default) her lifestyle! Frankly, she was intense about accepting "who she was" and didn't care who didn't like it... even Jesus! "...Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem...." Note the spirit of her words: "...but YOU JEWS claim...." (which is to say: "...You're wrong and WE are right about this place, how we worship and how we live).

I can take another message from this as well... Perhaps she was also saying (defending) how she was going to worship and live REGARDLESS of whatever Jesus had to say to her as a perceived Prophet! In other words, You worship the way you do Jesus, but I will worship my own way - the way that agrees with my history and culture! I'm comfortable being me, and I won't allow YOU to come to my land and attempt to change that!

Can you see this? There is so much to say about this from the perspectives of denominationalism, division and separatism, nepotism ("family" ministry), territorialism and even from the perspective of "worship style" and "spiritual preference" - all particulaly obscure from overt discussion, but intense problematic issues in Christiandom nonetheless!

Ah, but I love the Answers that Jesus gives to this issue (and the other afore mentioned issues)....

"...Woman, Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem...." WOW! Look at what Jesus said. Essentially, He said TO THE WOMAN that SHE would soon worship freely! In other words, her history won't matter nor will her culture! Her thoughts about "the right place" to worship won't matter, nor will her own land! WOW! Please note that Jesus said this TO HER FIRST! "...a time is coming when YOU...."

After speaking directly to her, Jesus then let her know what the REAL issue is with her culture! "...You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews [meaning: the Jews were the FIRST to accept the way of salvation]...." As stated earlier, the Samaritan People worshiped idols and false gods, and she needed to hear this from Jesus at this time!

Now I told you that the 4th key/point was the "Change of Intensity" and perhaps you have already seen this point in what we have discussed thus far, but if not, I'm sure you will see it in what Jesus said further! You see, the Woman was "intense" from the perspective of defending her culture, lifestyle and even her spiritual disposition! Jesus, however, spoke to that intensity and introduced the kind of spiritual intensity that she should acribe to possess and look forward to! Let's look at what Jesus told her closer.

"...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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth...."

Jesus told her that "True Worshipers" are here now, and the time WILL come when YOU will be just like them! Who are these "True Worshipers?" They are the kind of people who worship IN SPIRIT and IN TRUTH! Hallelujah!

To really understand this better, careful study must be done from the original manuscripts. I can tell you from my own study, "Worshiping In Spirit" is to worship WITHOUT any defining substance. In other words, whatever it is that defines YOU as an individual must be completely YIELDED to God. Your worshp must be completely FREE of outside influences or anything else that would dare to difine how you encounter The Presence of God! Worship must be completely naked of worldly connections altogether, free from all that would dare assume credit for your invitation into the realm of The Nature of God and completely yielded to all that God is willing to allow you to experience in His presence! This is "Worship In Spirit" - Your surrendered Self-Consciousness transformed into a God-Consciousness!

To "Worship In Truth" is the companion of "In Spirit" worship! It is to worship with complete HONESTY, CANDIDNESS and SINCERITY! To Worship In Truth is the element of worship that demand our Integrity! Its the agreement with God to NOT attempt to hide anything from Him (who sees all anyway). Additionally, another aspect of the Original Manuscripts that jumped out for me regarding Worship In Truth is that NOT ONLY must we not attempt to hide anything from the standpoint of potential "secrets" (though rediculous as it may seem), but the true understanding of Worship In Spirit is the idea of revealing things that have been "SECRETED."

PLEASE GET THIS....

I'm NOT simply referring to "secrets" as such, but secrets that have been tucked away for years upon years! In other words, we tend to have "things" and "issues" (i.e., sins, offenses, pains, hurts, disappointments, etc) in our history that we have hidden for so long that even your closest friends or family don't know about them. Perhaps the issues we hide are there because our family or friends have helped us put them there! Yes! Its one thing to be forgiven of sin, but to be forgive sins that have been committed against us is something entirely different!

Jesus is saying to the Woman (in essence) that she must change the things she is so INTENSE about protecting, honoring and being defined by! He is saying that she doesn't have to allow culture, history or any other inhibiting factors to keep her from life-transforming encounter with The Lord that is waiting for a decision from her!

I don't know about you, but if you have taken the time to read this rendition of The Woman at The Well story, I will trust that you are like me: I WANT MORE of God and am willing to make the changes neccessary to ensure that I can accept His Invitation to Encouter Him in greater ways!

I am willing to Change My Identity! I am willing to Change My Inability! I am willing to Change My Intimacy, and YES, I am willing to Change My Intensity! I WILL WORSHIP THE LORD IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH! Why? The Lord is seeking me to! He is looking for a people who will worship Him the way He Desires to be worshiped.... Completely free, uninfluenced, undefined, yielded, honest, REAL, sincere and without anything hidden whatsoever!

I want this for me... and I want this for you! WORSHIP HIM! He is seeking you! He is looking for you and I to worship Him without trepidation, but with Reverence of Who He Is!

Do you want MORE?