Gift of God
John 4:10"…….If you knew the gift of God…”
If only we knew the gift of God, we would not be shelving God behind, ignoring church, prayer and running behind materialistic things. Are you there? Do you have the guts to tell your boss, ‘kindly give me permission to attend church on Sunday and I would then come to work?’ Not many, though… Recently I was speaking to few Christian nurses whose lives were in a mess and all of them confessed that due to shift duties they were not able to attend church. No wonder their marriage, finances and kids are in a mess! With the plethora of church services around, not to mention the on-line church services as well, we have no excuses to dismiss God in our life. Anybody there? Find a way out to live a disciplined spiritual life with God leading the way. Far too many Christians ‘draw a blank’ when it comes to scriptures, with all of the resources available today through the web, books and what not, we have no excuses for this ignorance. It reveals sheer carelessness towards God!
Jesus is no respecter of persons, He paused to speak to a Samaritan woman at a well, who had come to draw water at an odd hour because she had been ostracized by everyone due to her bad reputation of having lived with five men and also involved with another. Six men could not satisfy her! We fail to understand that none of these worldly things can satisfy us, in fact, it stirs your passion to say, ‘I want more.’ When Jesus asked her ‘give me a drink?’, the Samaritan woman failed to understand that He is One who can give what we ask for and more. She innocently and naively asked him, "Sir, how is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?” Jesus replied: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." Jesus was slowly, patiently and cautiously preaching for a single woman, to unravel the Truth and open her spiritual eyes. Finally Jesus tells her, ‘I am the Messiah!’ If only she knew the gift of God she would not have got messed up with so many relationships……..
Many of us run to google search engine to search for best doctors, the details of the disease and more but very few would lock the door and cry out to God. If only people knew the gift of God! When I asked a Christian woman to come and attend our fasting prayer if she wants her husband back, she asked, ‘how could he come back just through a couple of fasting prayers?’ She did attend our prayer for more than a year and he did come back to his wife, leaving his girl friend. Besides, God did a mighty transformation in the life of the wife too… Prayers do work! If only people knew the gift of God!
The burgeoning electronic gadgets, mobiles, chic cars and exotic holiday resorts, branded clothes and shoes cannot give you the joy and peace that He offers…if only people knew the gift of God. The gift of God is Jesus…..the Living water……who quenches our thirst and gives us contentment. Many are trapped in working out retirement plan and building their dream home to settle after retirement, alas, they have forgotten the God that had blessed them thus far; the aftermath of all this is chaos in their life! If only people knew the gift of God…!
Quote of Rev Billy Graham: ”Work is important, but our work was never meant to become the center of our lives. That place belongs only to God, and when we allow our work to dominate and control us, then it has become an idol to us – and that is wrong. Someone who brags about working seventy or eighty hours (or more) a week probably things he is the master of his job, but in reality he has become its slave.”
