ISAIAH 55:1 - "THE INVITATION"

"If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee Living Water." (John 4:10) As I have stated before, I believe that the prophet Isaiah had a unique insight into the things of Jesus; His life, before, during and after He was walking on this earth. The detail of certain events that took place, can only really be established by actually viewing them, knowing them and experiencing them first hand. It is abundantly clear, if we so choose to see, that the text of this chapter in Isaiah has so much in common with the content of John chapter 4; the story of 'The woman at the well'. In the lead up to starting this study, or actually the start of this study, I demonstrated that we needed to understand the difference between God's Perfect Will and His Permissive Will, and the impact either can have upon our lives, the lives of those around us, and to our very souls. In John chapter 4, we get to witness a demonstration of Jesus walking in God's perfect will. We can see multiple levels of 'Invitations' to partake of the Living Water. There is the invitation of God, for us to step out in faith and experience His water being poured out through us; the invitation that we can make towards others to taste and see, as we are used as a vessel for the water to be poured out of; the invitation that those we minister to can then make on to those that they know; this could go on for quite some time, but I think you get the point. To begin to understand what transpired here at the well, we must first understand why Jesus went there in the first place. Understand something very important, (actually critical information), going through the land of Samaria was not something that a good Jew would do. They considered the people of Samaria to be defiled; they looked upon them as lower than the Gentiles, why?, because these were Half-Breeds; descendants of Jacob that settled with and married heathens. The Jewish people so disliked the Samaritain people, they would treat them as if the were lepers if they saw one on the street. In verse 4 of John chapter 4, we see a four letter word that explains why Jesus went this way; it is the word 'MUST' , and by this word we can begin to see how God works to bring about His perfect will. Just as this was not a normal path that a Jew would take, Jesus was not a normal Jew; He was God in the flesh, and having within Him the fullness of the Living God. Therefore, He was privileged to certain information and knowledge that only God could know; point in fact: that in going through Samaria, He would meet a Samaritan woman at the Jacob's Well; that she would be an adulteress woman that has come to draw water for her house; that He would reveal in her the Truth of God; that she would run and tell her fellow countrymen about this Truth; that they in turn would run onto Him for this Truth; that Jesus would get to experience fullness that can only be provided by doing God's Perfect Will. I really could go on and on about the impact upon what took place there, but I will save that for another time. The main point I wanted to make today, is that we must be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit tells us to do. Sometimes; many times, we can try and make a determination of who God would have us share with, by their appearance, their reputation, their ethnicity, there gender, their religious upbringing; but God does not look at any of those things, He looks at the heart. We can not know what it is God is going to do, we are not God; but we can know what it is that we must do, as we listen and obey the Holy Spirit's voice. Only God can determine what His purpose is, and how He will bring it to pass; our responsibility is to do what we are told to do, and then let Him do the rest. The real benefit to us in doing what we must, is that we can experience the fulfillment in doing God's will. To be full, really full and really satisfied beyond what we could be otherwise. In verses 31- 34, Jesus tells His disciples that He has already eaten, after they had went to go and get Him food, came to Him with that food, and then asked Him to eat; Jesus replied, "I have meat to eat that you know not of". (verse 32) I pray that as we go through this study, our lives would be changed; that the things which have held us back from doing God's perfect will, would be removed; that God's Spirit would be pressed into us, like never before; and that Jesus would be able to minister in us, through us and all around us as we travel forward. Amen