“Trees Grow Where the Water Flows”
Pastor David Moore
New Testament reading: John 4:4-15
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
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.”
“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.”
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.”
Today’s theme is the contrasting of a man’s heart who trusts in humans and those individuals who trust in God.
Old Testament reading: Jeremiah 17:1-10, 13-14
“Judah’s sin is engraved with an iron tool, inscribed with a flint point, on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars. Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles beside the spreading trees and on the high hills. My mountain in the land and your wealth and all your treasures I will give away as plunder, together with your high places, because of sin throughout your country. Through your own fault you will lose the inheritance I gave you. I will enslave you to your enemies in a land you do not know, for you have kindled my anger, and it will burn forever. This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.’
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.
Vs 13: O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water. Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.
Sin and grace are different orientations of the heart. Either we put our roots down into God, or into something else, and that makes all the difference in life as we cope with these troubled times. ~D. Moore
Charles Spurgeon: God does not need your strength: he has more than enough of power of his own. He asks your weakness: he has none of that himself, and he is longing therefore, to take your weakness, and use it as the instrument in his own mighty hand. Will you not yield your weakness to him, and receive his strength?
Jesus says love God – that is the most important thing – and all the rest of the stuff will fall into place. ~D. Moore
God is saying if you want security, if you want significance, if you want commitment, you must have your own spiritual root secure in God. If you truly serve Him, love Him, trust Him, then circumstance will have a minimal effect on you. ~D. Moore
Ephesians 3:17-21
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and live and high and deep is the love of Christ.
This week reflect on the two types of trees, then think about what tree you would rather like to be. Then pray for the strength to allow your heart to seek our true giver of life and sink your heart roots into a closer walk with Christ.
Have a blessed week!