Worthy Purpose

‘Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work’ John 4:34

‘Go and get your husband”, Jesus told her. “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband…’ John 4:16-18. Jesus connected to the Samaritan woman’s story by word of knowledge while He was talking with her. She was astonished as Jesus began to tell her her life’s history. When we develop friendships, the purpose is to discover stories. When we focus on building trust no matter how long, developing and discovering people’s stories, fantastic doors open to us. Discovering stories show us how best to serve people. Study Jesus’ conversation with the woman by the well, notice how her level of interest grew as Jesus connected to her story. There was a man that I was developing friendship with some time ago. I would hang out with him and just talk. I was discovering his story. I found that his major problem was fraud. There were not many like him back then who were into that line of fraud. He told me that he had a problem with being born again because he had a girlfriend who claimed to be born again but was intimate with him. So his problem was someone professing Christ but not living a godly life. Even a sinner knows how a Christian should behave.

The third D: Discern the appropriate next steps. If you are going to break the ice effectively you have to consistently develop friendships in order to discover stories so that you can discern the appropriate next steps and break the ice. For the case of my friend that I mentioned earlier, discerning the appropriate next steps would be to tell him that the lady is just compromising because she thinks she will lose him. Guess what, when he eventually gave his life to Christ, the first thing he did was terminate that proposed marriage relationship. He said if she was saved and was intimate with him, now that he is saved he does not know whether she would be faithful if they get married. In other words, if she couldn’t be faithful to Jesus, how can she be faithful to him? Everything you abandon Jesus for will abandon you for Jesus.

Prayer: Father, help me walk worthy of You. I pray that my obedience and passion for You will lead others to You, in Jesus Name.