Good morning. Thanking in the natural, the woman at the well
said “give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all this way here
to draw”. Call your husband. I don’t have a husband. You have had five husbands
and the one you now have is not your husband. I perceive that You are a
prophet. Deflecting, she now brings up the bone of contention between the Jews
and Samaritans: you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to
worship. God had said that Jerusalem was the place where the temple was to be
built, and where worship was to occur. After the kingdom was divided, the
northern kingdom worshiped in the mountains of Samaria. An hour is coming when
neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You
worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from
the Jews. (He didn’t say for the Jews - leaving us out). An hour is coming, and
now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth;
for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. It does not matter
where we worship – but rather how we worship. God is Spirit, and those who
worship Him must worship in Spirit and truth. The king James translates this as
God is a Spirit. I guess it could be translated either way; but to me that
limits God to a single location. Worshiping God in Spirit and truth brings us
back to the old saying: if you have the Word without the Spirit, you will dry
up; if you have the Spirit without the Word, you will blow up. Father thank You
that we can worship You in both Spirit and truth. We thank You for all You have
done for us.
Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me
Good morning. Paul then gives a list of a lot of things that he has gone through as an apostle. I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. There could be many people that you listen to either in church or through the Internet or other means; but there was only one person (as a general rule it was a person) that lead you to Christ. Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. He was saying that just like a child imitates his or her father, they were to imitate him. He says that again seven chapters later. Since it is easy to forget some things about people we have not seen in a while, Paul says that he sent Timothy to them to remind them of his ways which are in Christ, just as he taught everywhere in every church. Some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. I shall find ou...
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