The Secret Fountain of Youth

"No one who drinks the water I give will ever be thirsty again.  The water.. is like a flowing fountain that gives eternal life." (John 4:14)

Text: John 4:5-42

Deep down inside everyone wants to be young.  The young feels they will never die or grow old.  The not so young want be young again.  It is that deep drive within us to embrace life and living and never let go of it. Even to our last breath we fight for it.  The legends and  myths of a fabled fountain of youth really gets its fuel from this primal urge to live.  But the myth and fable of perpetual youth is not only driven by a deep desire for living.  It is also accentuated by a frustration and suffering of what is now... the absence of a true experience of life.  Many of us really don't know how to live.  And so we struggle in trying.

We chase this fountain of youth like an elusive mirage in this desert of broken and disappointing promises.  We buy into the latest fads and advertising that promises youth and vitality.  In our story today a Samaritan woman in this very same predicament meets Jesus.  Here she is offered a simple way to life and living.  To give Jesus a drink... a drink of her life... as imperfect and messy as it is.  Jesus was thirsting for her vulnerability and transparency... to worship not just in spirit but in truth.  And in return the woman is offered the secret fountain of youth... a life that is full, free, and bubbling from within... like a fountain.

The woman found what she was looking for.  She got it.  The secret fountain of living large is found in an open and authentic commitment to the supernatural.  Her line: " this (supernatural) man told me everything that I ever did".  Translation:  He took a drink of my life- even the bad and ugly parts... and connected with me deeply anyway... and I took a drink of His life.. eternal and full.  If we can only get it.  There will be more truly happy persons in the world!

"Lord I am tired of drawing water from a life that is living me dry and thirsty.  Jesus here... take a drink of my life... I hold nothing back  Let me get a drink of your life... Lord... this is life!  Living around your presence.. honest, true, and free!"

The Formula For Supernatural Intimacy

"The Lord said to Abram: leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you... he obeyed and left..." (Genesis 12:1,5a)

Reading: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

Just imagine: leaving everything behind you that you know; to journey toward a place you have no idea what or where... taking with you your loved ones who probably are seeking from you, some kind of guarantee of security and stability... and all you can say is- "because the Lord said so."  Have you ever followed someone's direction when that very direction advised by this someone requires you to sacrifice everything and take a big risk with no guarantee other than that person's word?

If there is any lesson Abraham's life (Abram) teaches us it is this:  the only way to experience intimacy with the supernatural and experience the supernatural deeply is to make an unconditional decision to trust.  This kind of trusting requires us to surrender all that we are.  It calls us to respond in complete vulnerability, risk, and authenticity... to say yes to the supernatural presence.  What this kind of faith does is build and nurture an intimacy that is completely supernatural and spiritual.  It gives us what we are all looking for: a complete and whole life... where someone beyond becomes an intricate part of our lives and we become an intricate part of that someone beyond ourselves.

This is the same kind of trusting and believing that builds relationships... a lasting marriage... a strong friendship... a solid community.  Biblical scholars and theologians have a word for this.  They call it- a saving faith.

"Jesus I want this to be my story... my song.  I desire and seek to trust you Lord beyond reason... beyond conditions... beyond my own self interests.  Let me be close to you and you close to me.  Jesus that is all I ask."   

The Supernatural Answer To Temptation

"Jesus answered: Go away Satan! The Scriptures say- worship the Lord your God and serve only Him." (Matthew 4:10)

Reading: Matthew 4:1-11

This story reflects the only time the devil saw Jesus as just a man... and only a man.  (Why would one bother to tempt God?)  But Jesus resisted and fought temptation also as a man... and only as a man.  (How could he be tempted just like us if he was tempted as God?)  So how did Jesus do it?  (As a man and only a man).  I need to understand the nature of satan's temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4 in order to grasp the way that Jesus responded to temptation.  Temptation really has one two-fold purpose: to separate me from intimacy with God by going against His heart and by going against His lordship.

The devil tempted Jesus three times.  Twice he tried to get Jesus to deviate from the purpose that his Father had for him.  And that one time the devil tried to get him to replace his Father's lordship in his life.  As  Jesus cultivated his spiritual relationship with God, he realized that he had a special relationship with Him.  God was his true Father.  That made him God in human flesh.  But as a man and only a man... he could only live that truth in an intimate relationship with God... where he experienced God as his Father.  The temptation then was to break this intimacy with God by deviating from God's heart and desire... and by throwing off God's lordship in his life.  Satan's temptation measured the depths of the intimate relationship that Jesus had with God.  This depth is reflected in how much Jesus lived and breathed his Father's revelation in Scripture. 

Jesus did this as a man and only a man.  Now I can answer temptation as a man... and only a man.

"Lord what an awesome display of strength in the thick of temptation.  I only want to stay intimate with you Lord.  Help me resist what is not your heart and desire in anything I encounter and experience.  Stay in the center of my life where you belong."

  

The Supernatural Power of Good News

"I am proud of the good news!  It is God's powerful way of saving all people who have faith..." (Romans 1:16)

Text: Romans 1:16-17, 3:22b-28

What kind of supernatural power comes with good news?  The good news that says I can come to an intimate and real experience of God 's presence and grace by trusting in the saving presence of Jesus Christ who sacrificed his life so I can be intimate with God.  That is good news and it really does imply something supernaturally incredible that I can taste and experience.  But I have heard all this before.  Many of us have heard this preached... proclaimed... and sometimes crammed down our throats.  How does the Lord make this sink in so it means what it really means to this current and present era?

My daughter Olivia is almost two years old.  She loves to sleep cuddled in her daddy's arms.  When she wakes up and senses the absence of her daddy... his scent... his breath... his arms... she begins to cry and call out to him.  Sometimes she actually gets out of her bed goes to daddy's bed where he sleeps.  Then she positions herself in his arms where she feels his cuddling presence... then she's back asleep.

What is supernaturally powerful about the good news of Jesus Christ?  I don't have to wake up alone.  Trusting in the presence of Jesus means that when I come to him I am coming to my daddy's arms.  I can rest in his presence and be covered by his scent... his breath... his arms.  This is where my leap of faith is.  I can rest asleep in my supernatural daddy's arms because I trust what Jesus said two thousand plus years ago.  "I am the way, the truth, and the life... without me no one can go to my daddy" (John 14:6).  

This is true.  All I have to do is trust that Jesus was speaking truth and reality when he said it.  When I do... I just climbed into my daddy's bed and I'm resting in his supernatural arms.  That is supernatural power.  That is good news.

"Jesus I know you spoke the truth when you said that believing you and trusting you would make God real to me.  So here you are present and alive... I am in your presence.  Lord I love your scent... your breath... it is your loving arms that is around me.  I am at peace."  

My ID: The Antidote To My Worries

"But more than anything else, put God's work first and do what He wants.  Then the other things will be yours as well."  (Matthew 6:33)

Reading: Matthew 6:24-34

If I don't have ID I don't get in.  Without proper identification of who I am there are certain places I cannot go.  There are certain privileges I cannot enjoy.  And there are experiences I cannot have.  It is amazing how a badge or a passport or a license that displays identity can make or break how my life gets lived and experienced.  In this world we live in there is always reason for worries and anxieties.  You name it.  Someone is struggling through it.  It is hard to fight against worries and anxieties.  They plague us all the time.  They don't seem to stop coming.  Books are written, have been written, and will be written about them. But they will always be there.  Wouldn't you like to be in a state or place of being where you don't have to worry or be anxious?  Wouldn't you like to enter a place... an environment where worries and anxieties don't get to poison your mind, your heart, or at least your day?  In Matthew 6:24-34 we will find that Jesus talks about such a place.  It is an awesome state of consciousness where even money (a major cause of worries and anxieties) can't take away our peace of mind.  There is only one problem: we need ID to enter this incredible worry-free place.   I need my dad to get this ID.  It is his ID actually that I wear in my heart and soul.  It is a supernatural ID because my true dad is supernatural.  Jesus calls him "ABBA"... my father... dad.  This ID marks me as the one who loves my daddy more than money... or anything.  When I wear this ID it identifies me as someone who lives for my daddy's business and ONLY His business.  As a result with this ID I get to enter a worry-free zone... an anxiety-clear environment.   If you're deep in worries and anxieties.  Take a look at your heart.  Who's ID are you wearing?  If it's not your supernatural dad's ID then you're probably in the wrong place.

"Lord I would really like to wear your ID in my heart.  I can't live with all these worries and anxieties.  They will kill me.  Let your ID be reflected in my priorities, and my values... that my business in life is YOURS and ONLY YOUR business.  Oh!  I'm in?  Wow! This is a great place to be!"  

A Supernatural Kind of Love

"Take away my foolish desires, and let me find life by walking with you."  (Psalm 119:37)

Reading: Psalm 119:33-40

What kind of a love is it that allows us to love someone forever... the love that allows us to forgive even when it hurts deeply... the love that still loves where there is no reason or grounds to even love at all... the love that persists even when it is unreturned or reciprocated... the love that still has passion and feeling with no conditions or strings attached?  The answer is simple and profound.  It is a love that doesn't originate from us.  It is the same love that made the infinite fragile and frail to the point of death because of a passion for one so base and selfish as myself.  In short, this kind of love is downright out of this world.  It is completely supernatural.  Psalm 119:33-40 echoes what all of Psalm 119 is really to its core... an attempt to visualize how we frail limited human beings can experience and live this supernatural love.  These verses about God's laws, precepts, or words are really desperate cries for a supernatural presence to become an intimate part of our daily life.   Mark the focus verse (119:37).  We are asking this supernatural presence to purge our foolish, self-serving nature and reorient us with a deep desire and passion just to walk with this supernatural presence.  That is living.  And living is loving.  Can't mix oil and water.  Can't mix love and selfishness.    In the Louisiana gulf oil spill, entire ecosystems were destroyed because oil couldn't mix with any living ecosystem.  The ecosystem of love that is necessary for us to "really" live cannot thrive when contaminated with the "crude" oil of our selfish nature.  We need to be delivered from the foolishness of our self-centeredness.  We need to live by loving this supernatural presence so deeply that we will only walk in life with this presence.  This is loving of a supernatural kind.

"Lord I confess I am the most selfish person around.  I am tired of my life being poisoned by this foolish desire only for what is best for me.  I want to live!  I want to love!  Please set me free from my selfishness and let me find myself in loving you and only you.  Amen." 

Breaking Down Prosperity

"... Choose life!  Be completely faithful to the Lord your God, love Him and do whatever He tells you..." (Deuteronomy 30:19d-20a)

Text: Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Have you ever wondered why you try to do the right thing and live a life of integrity and honesty and yet you somehow feel that somebody you know who lives the exact opposite lifestyle- doing all the wrong and selfish things and living a life of lies and dishonesty seems to be happier and better off than you?  In fact you are so convinced of this that it appears your life of doing the right and honest way is bringing you nothing but pain, suffering, and misery.  Yet there is your neighbor prospering and happy in what seems to be a life that you wish you had.  Deuteronomy seems to contradict this feeling by saying that if you do the right thing and live an honest life of integrity then you will be successful and prosperous.  In fact as Christians many of us have bought into this "prosperity theology".  But in many ways we end up still wondering in the end how we can be so miserable doing the right and honest thing while the selfish and untrustworthy seems to be the ones prospering.  In the Old Testament the people of God suffered this complex.  They constantly went after other gods because in their eyes these gods made all the other peoples rich and prosperous.  They seemed poor and unsophisticated in comparison.  Here's the breakdown on biblical-style prosperity: we are only as blessed and prosperous as the center of our love and devotion.   The excised section of the so-called "prosperity" passage in Deuteronomy gives this away.  Choose life!  But real life is defined as living faithful to "someone" supernatural... that this someone is the object of our total love and affection.  It is out of this intimate, no-strings-attached passion that we "follow and obey" the supernatural one we love... that we live like Him... right... honest... truthful.  Let's try this experiment (this is the dare in Deuteronomy): let's live right and honest for no other reason than because we love a right and honest Lord... no conditions... no strings attached.   Maybe the reason we're miserable is because we are trying to do the right and honest thing for the wrong reasons.

"Jesus I am really wanting to understand the point of living right, honest, and truthful.  But Lord it just doesn't seem to make me happy or fulfilled.  I confess I end up resenting the right, honest, and truthful choices I make  because it doesn't make me prosperous, happy, or successful.  Lead me Lord!  I want to follow you and stay faithful to you because I love you... and I want to love you!  Please let that be enough for me... please Lord."