DEVOTION OF THE MONTH – APRIL 2010

NEW BEGINNINGS

BY MIKE CHAFFIN

“I wish I could start over,” she said. Many people wish this every day. Maybe it’s regrets about their job, a relationship that has been damaged, or life in general hasn’t gone as they planned. Something has gone wrong and they wish they could start over.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” John 4:39

The Samaritan woman came to the well to gather water in the mid-day, a time when only outcasts collected water. She had been rejected, or shamed, from gathering water in the morning with the other women of the village. How many times she must have made the walk in the heat of the day, alone, wishing she had done things differently. Jesus, having just arrived for this very encounter, asked this woman for a drink. She, seeing he was a Jew, asked why he even talked to her. Jesus, who knows all things, told her about her past and her present condition. He also told her He was the Messiah. She believed and left her water at the well to run and tell others in the village that the Messiah was here, in their town. Of course, this cursed woman, this outcast, wasn’t believed at first, but many of them did believe her story and others believed her enough to go see Jesus for themselves.

She encountered Jesus and received Him as Savior, changing her so much that she didn’t fear the ridicule of the villagers. She went and boldly told them of her encounter. Jesus changed her life and those of her fellow villagers and she was given a new life and a new start. You can bet the next morning there was a rap at her door. It was the other ladies with their water pots, waiting for her to go with them to the well.

Are you burdened today with the woes of this world, regrets of things gone wrong or burdens too hard to bear? Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The answer is only a prayer away.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16