What does it take to be right with God?
John chapter 4 gives us a story that answers this question.
Jesus meets a woman who lives her life as a social outcast. She’s probably hauling her water in the blazing noonday sun because she’d rather get roasted by the sun than by the crowd who haul their water during the pleasant hours of the day.
Jesus offers the woman living water, but when she asks for it, He asks her to go call her husband. In so asking, Jesus touches the sore spot of her life – the wound that she spends every moment of her life guarding.
Was Jesus being a jerk? Or was He, as a doctor, diagnosing a problem so He could do something about it?
The woman dodged the painful topic with a religious question. But the conversation obviously convinced her of the genuine goodness of Jesus’ offer and request. She didn’t just call her husband – she called the whole town. The transformation in her life was so obvious that the whole town came to see Jesus.
So what does it take to be right with God? Two things: accept what He offers, and give Him what He’s convicting you of.
This is the opposite of the many voices telling us “You’re fine the way you are.” Those voices sound good in the moment, and are often well-intentioned. But deep inside, they don’t satisfy. We have to keep finding more to tell us the same – to dull the throbbing for another moment.
When God places His finger on the pain in our lives, is He being sadistic? Or is He offering healing and something better?
One more thing to consider: after observing the transformation in the woman’s life, Jesus said that His thirst was satisfied. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, He said nothing about the thousands of nerves in His body that were in fiery agony. He said “I thirst.” Does the story of the woman in John 4 tell us what He meant when He said that? Is He still thirsty?