God Seeks Honest Hearts, Not Perfect Lives
Daily Scripture
John 4:16-24
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, get your husband, and come back here.”
17 The woman replied, “I don’t have a husband.”
“You are right to say, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus answered. 18 “You’ve had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn’t your husband. You’ve spoken the truth.”
19 The woman said, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you and your people say that it is necessary to worship in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you and your people will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You and your people worship what you don’t know; we worship what we know because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the time is coming—and is here!—when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth. The Father looks for those who worship him this way. 24 God is spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and truth.”
Daily Reflection & Prayer
The woman rightly said she didn’t have a husband. Scholar Jaime Clark-Soles wrote, “The Samaritan woman is the most misinterpreted character in the Bible. She is often construed as a woman of loose morals, but she has husbands, not customers.” * Medicine then was limited—some of her husbands may have died. Men, not she, would have ended her other marriages—women could not initiate divorce. But she did try to shift the subject. “The best subject for distracting attention from morality is, of course, religion.” **
- The woman’s effort to deflect the conversation focused on what separated Samaritans and Jews. Jesus twice repeated the phrase “the time is coming” and spoke of “true worshippers” in terms that were inclusive rather than exclusive. How did Jesus’ response reveal God’s desire to draw the human family together, rather than breaking them into quarreling sub-groups? How vital is that message in today’s world?
- “Where’s the right place to worship?” the woman asked. Jesus gladly built on the subject. To worship God wasn’t about the “right” place but about doing it “in spirit and truth” (verse 24). “Spirit” was the same word as “breath.” God is as close to us as our breath, knows each of us better than we know ourselves, and loves us deeply! We can come to God as we are, grateful for the gift of love and mercy. What do you need to honestly bring to the Lord, knowing that God loves you as his child?
Prayer
Jesus, too often my shame makes me shrink from honesty with myself and you. Help me to trust you and embrace the truth of your love and mercy so that I can more fully worship you. Amen.
GPS Insights
Janelle Gregory
Janelle Gregory serves on the Resurrection staff as Human Resources Lead Director. Janelle finds that her heart is constantly wrestling with the truth that she needs a Savior, and the times when she's at her very best are when she's just too tired to put up a fight.
I recently met a man and his wife on an airport shuttle. The man told me that once on a business trip he struck up a conversation with a stranger over dinner. Together, they were able to commiserate on how much they were struggling with their angsty, defiant, teenage daughters. He said it felt good to get it off his chest with someone who could relate and know that he’ll never see that person ever again. He then turned to me and asked, “Anything you want to get off your chest?” “I appreciate the offer,” I replied, “but I’m good.”
I had nothing to lose. I could have offered up the deepest, darkest parts of my soul to a stranger on our 10-minute drive to the airport. It’s not that I don’t have bleak parts. We all do. I just didn’t want to share in that moment.
It’s difficult to bare your soul, be it to someone close to you or a stranger. We like to expose only those parts of us that are shiny, put together, and socially acceptable. Behind our glossy exteriors lie our parts that are less polished, dingy, broken, or maybe even downright disgusting. We haul these parts with us wherever we go, but rarely do they see the light of day. Honestly, I think that’s okay. We don’t need to share the depths of our souls freely and recklessly. But some of us never share them at all – not to our spouses, our friends, our family, or even our God.
Some of us might think that because God is holy, pure, and righteous, that he only wants the parts of us that are holy, pure, and righteous. Yes, he desires those things for us, but not at the expense of hiding the dark parts. When we hide our darkness, the light of Christ loses its power. The best the light can do is to make us less dim. We’ll never shine brightly if we don’t reveal our entire truth. My hope is that we all come into God’s light with every bit of who we are (even the shadiest parts) and live radiantly in his mercy and love.
© 2024 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Jaime Clark-Soles, “Portrait: The Samaritan Woman” in The CEB Women’s Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2016, p. 1342.
** Wright, N. T., John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-10 (The New Testament for Everyone) (p. 44). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
