CAN YOU RECOGNIZE THE GIFT OF GOD?

Dear Believer,

Let us go back together in time and sit with Jesus at the Well of Jacob to observe a very important event and learn a great lesson.

He and His disciples had walked a long, long distance and were hungry and thirsty. Jesus sat by the well while His disciples went into the village nearby to buy food.

A woman of Samaria was there silently drawing water from that well. She definitely had an attitude! She wasn’t going to talk to Jesus because Jesus was a Jew and she was a Samaritan. Her people despised the Jews. And the Jews more than returned the favor. They despised the Samaritans with a passion.

But Jesus was more than a mere Jew. He broke the palpable silence by saying something the Samaritan considered ridiculous.

“Give me to drink.”

That woman was gobsmacked. Jews ordinarily would never touch anything that had been ‘contaminated’ by Samaritans. They considered the Samaritans unclean mongrels. And even if they wanted anything from the Samaritans, they were sure to be refused. That woman was livid!

“You are a Jew, Mister, and I am a Samaritan AND a woman,” she reminded Jesus. “We have absolutely nothing in common, so keep to yourself!”

With a little shake of the head and a beautiful smile, Jesus uttered these unforgettable words that have made a very deep impression on me since I first read them.

“If you knew of the gift of God,” replied Jesus, “and who it is that is saying to you ‘Give me some water,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you ‘living water’.” John 4:10.

Consider that for a moment.

Jesus looked so ordinary. Having walked a long distance without food and water, He seemed to the woman a very poor loafer. She spoke disrespectfully to her. 

Sometimes you get so close to someone who is a gift of God to you so much so that you see their weaknesses and lack and needs. If you are not wise you may allow familiarity to cheat you of what God has put in them for you.

Yet Jesus was the very Gift that God had sent to her. He was the light that her life had been lacking. She was despising the gift of God without knowing it.

All she had was a bucket of water from an old public well and she felt so important and arrogant. Jesus could get that water by Himself if He had wanted, yet this woman was so proud of her water and used it as a tool to get at Jesus for the ‘sins’ of the whole Jewish people. Unknown to her, she was cheating herself of the Gift of God.

Jesus was patient with her. By the Holy Spirit, He spoke to that woman, laid her life bare and told her the hidden things in her heart. She eventually was saved and became the instrument of salvation to her town.

Dear Believer, do you know that many are now despising the gift God sent to help them fulfill their destiny?

Helpers don’t always come in resplendent glory. I have had the experience of Jesus many times. The gifts God has given me to help many people have been despised and rejected by some because I didn’t fit their preconceived idea of a helper. You have probably had such experience, too.

Some people have despised the person they should have married because they didn’t look like they expected or because they are from the ‘wrong tribe.’ Some people would have been blessed spiritually by some ‘unknown’ minister with the gift of God, but because the minister is not a popular one, he or she was rejected.

Sometime a friend or a person in your family has a special grace to help you in some aspect of life, but you allow familiarity to get in the way and you reject that gift.

Sometimes you get so close to someone who is a gift of God to you so much so that you see their weaknesses and lack and needs. If you are not wise you may allow familiarity to cheat you of what God has put in them for you.

Some have quarreled with the ‘gift of God’ for their life. Some have cursed the gift and some have vowed never to have anything to do with the gift God sent to them anymore because of minor misunderstandings.

Jesus told the woman who thought she had an advantage, “If only you recognize the gift of God!”

You need to pray with me today:

Father in heaven, I thank You for the gifts of God You have sent to me at this time and since my life began. I ask you Lord that you open my eyes of understanding so that I may recognize the gifts of God and not miss the divine opportunities you’ve sent my way. Let the Holy Spirit teach me to connect with the gifts of God for my life and also prepare me to be a gift of God to other people, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Have a blessed day.

Your friend
Deon.
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For further studies, read John Chapter 4.