Restoration: Living Water

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

Photo Credit: Flickr User CinCool, Creative Commons

Do you know what it feels like to go to the well at noon? Yes, but I haven’t felt like that for a long time now. I answered this question in my heart as Pastor VanTil shared the message based on John 4:6-26, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. I began to wonder if I had really overcome my sin and shame, if I had really encountered Jesus and experienced his refreshment and restoration. But then the Holy Spirit spoke into my heart and reminded me that, yes, I had dealt with the sin and shame of my past, but what about my present struggles and sins?

Instead of allowing Jesus’s living water to continue working in my life, I have reached a place of complacency and apathy. I seek daily satisfaction and fulfillment through material things such as my education, career, financial status, and role as a wife and mother. My wells or cisterns—the things that keep drawing me away from true restoration through Jesus—are less obvious now than they were in my past, but they do still exist. I have created my own broken cisterns that cannot hold water or provide lasting refreshment and restoration.

As Jeremiah 2:13 says, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Just like the Samaritan woman searched for fulfillment through the many men in her life, I too search for satisfaction and define myself in terms of what I can offer the world. The first question that people often ask when they first meet one another is, “What do you do for a living?” Even as Christians we are quick to define each other based on occupation, education, financial status, or other material factors, when in reality, we are defined by the love of Christ. I love this assurance from Galatians 3:26-29:

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

When we return to those wells in life again and again—whether it’s finding our satisfaction in relationships, our identity in an addiction, or our worth in the reflection in the mirror—remember instead that God gave us a well of living water. He called us as his children to be defined by his love that refreshes and restores us to who we were created to be. We no longer are slaves to our sin, but are free from shame and are loved unconditionally by a God who purposefully pursues us, even when we are undesirable.

For further reflection on this week’s message, check out The Well by Casting Crowns.

[Megan Stephenson is a recent graduate of Grand Valley State University and works for a private education group in Grand Rapids as an Assistant Registrar. She loves spending time with her husband, Ben, trying out new breweries, restaurants, and local attractions. She also self-identifies as a crazy cat lady, despite owning no cats of her own, thanks to her loving and allergic husband.]

Giving Up Religion

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

I was raised in a Christian home and attended Christian schools, so religion has been woven into my entire life. For a long time though, and even at times today, I thought religion was the point of it all. The first time I heard someone say that Jesus hadn’t come to earth to create a new religion, I had to ponder it a bit. Divorcing the concept of religion from our relationship with God is a complicated process, because it’s not that religion itself, or the practices we engage in because of religion, are inherently bad or wrong. The problem comes in when religion becomes our aim instead of God--because Jesus didn’t come to bring us religion. He came to bring us himself. 

Photo Credit: Flickr User Paul Trafford, Creative Commons

When it’s wrongly understood, religion tells us there are a certain set of rules we have to follow, and if we follow them well enough, God will be happy with us and love us. The problem is, we don’t have the capability to follow the rules well enough to earn God’s love, and that’s where basing our lives on religion falls apart. It’s a game with no winners, ever.

Galatians 4:6-7 tells us how relationship with God is really supposed to be:

Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

It’s not based on something we do; “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” That’s the key right there--on our own, we’re never enough, but God says we’re already enough. We’re his children, dearly loved because of who we are and not because of what we do.

All of this is well and good; it’s certainly important to be reminded that we’re deeply valued and loved by God. But why does this really matter in our everyday lives? What difference does it make? Intellectually I know I’m loved by God and don’t need to try to meet some unattainable standard, but it doesn’t always feel that way. What can bridge the gap?

The answer is the Holy Spirit. The rituals and beliefs of religion can’t, on their own, save us or move us any closer to God. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. To break free from the idea that religion is the point instead of God, we have to believe and let the Holy Spirit do his work.

This is a difficult concept for me. For all my religious knowledge, pointing to the Holy Spirit’s actual work in my life would be a lot harder for me. There’s something about the idea of letting the Holy Spirit work in my life that unnerves me a bit, and I think it’s because I’d much prefer for the Spirit to work within the limits I put on him. A prayer as I brush my teeth, a few minutes of silence on my drive to work, a bit of Bible reading before bed, and I feel like I should be set. All of those activities tend to be rushed though, like I’m expecting God to work himself into my schedule. 

When we really desire to put a relationship with God first instead of getting caught up in the rules of religion, we can’t expect the Spirit to only work through the spare snippets of time we give him in the midst of a chaotic life. It’s not that the Holy Spirit can’t or won’t work through those circumstances, because he can work anywhere and through anything, but to truly grasp the significance of our relationship with God as his children, we have to commit to dwell on it, soak it in, not rush to get to the next thing. The significance and responsibility of being a child of God can’t be crammed into the corners of our lives--it has to become a priority.


Over the next few weeks, what would it look like to set aside intentional time to dwell on our identity as children of God and to ask the Holy Spirit to meet us in that place?


[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

Driver's Seat

 [The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

After my junior year in high school, I spent the summer teaching sixth grade Bible class every morning at a summer camp. (I spent the afternoons and evenings much less glamorously washing dishes. Lots of dishes. All the dishes.) I remember almost nothing I taught (I hope the kids don’t either – I was so young in my faith), but there is one lesson that sticks in my mind.

In a fully unfortunate illustration that likened our need for salvation to a toll booth (please remember how young I was), I explained that if Jesus was in the passenger seat, He could pay the toll. THE PASSENGER SEAT!

Photo credit: Flickr user Nicholas A Tonelli

I remember it so clearly because some time later I realized how completely wrong I was! If anyone in the room was not a sixth grader, they probably would have called me out for the passenger seat illustration (to which, I would hopefully have said something witty about how it was actually a British car). In all seriousness, I have prayed that those kids would all forget all of my teaching. Who knows what else I said?!

Why would I put Jesus in the passenger seat in that illustration? Because I like control. Because life was all about me, and I was really glad I had found Jesus and invited Him along for the ride. I like my own way; I want to drive that metaphorical life-car. And as a young Christian not fluent in Christian-ese, I didn’t realize how passenger-Jesus revealed all of my selfishness, control issues and lack of surrender.

My plan was to figure out how I could best succeed at life, and then invite Jesus along, hoping to please Him with my efforts. I had a lot to learn about God’s grace and sovereignty.

Unfortunately, I learned words like “seeking His will,” and “God is calling me…” far before I understood how to listen for the Spirit, how to hear Him. I learned to hide my messy heart, instead of learning to hear His voice. I realized how incorrect my statement was about putting Jesus in the passenger seat before I learned how to let Him have control of my life.

I had no idea how to listen to God, no idea how to hear and feel the stirrings of the Holy Spirit.

No idea how to follow.

Oceans is a familiar worship song at Encounter. “You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown, where feet may fail…” Those lyrics really seem to resonate with us. My heart knows that following where God calls is right and good, and I want it to do it. But even as I sing, I sometimes struggle to know confidently to what or how God is calling me. You too? If we’re being honest, most of us should probably be singing something more like, “I like to swim, so I go running into the water; where are you when the waves crash me into the rocky shore?”

This week Pastor Dirk shared from 1 Corinthians 12:1-3 that we sometimes struggle to hear God because, if we’re honest, we aren’t very good at listening. When we are considering our plans, our ideas, what to do when faced with a choice and whether it will bring glory, comfort or presumed happiness to us, we may be “listening” to a mute idol. If we listen for God, His direction will always lead us to choices that declare that Jesus is Lord.

When we feel a nudge to do something or not to do something, how do we know if it’s Him? If we are being nudged into something that will declare His glory, that will proclaim “Jesus is Lord!” we know it’s Him. If we are being nudged toward things that don’t elevate us, but that elevate our God, if the outcome will deflect praise and glory back to Him, we can be sure that nudge is the Holy Spirit moving us toward God’s glory.

He is a good and gracious God – He did not let me stay so wrong, so alone, attempting to bring success and glory to myself instead of Him.

God got all up in my business and showed me that He had been driving all along (those stories are too long for this blog…maybe I’ll share them another time). He’s driving me to places I wouldn’t even dream of, inviting me to do things I wouldn’t know to ask for.

When I operate in my own strength, my successes reflect my glory. When I operate in God’s strength, He gets the glory, and I get to enjoy the ride. He invites me to rely on His power to do things I’m not capable of. (Like this! I’m a science teacher – beakers and white boards are far more comfortable than words - writing is not my jam on my own!) He has called us to places where our feet fail, because He is strong enough to un-fail them!

I’m learning to hear His voice. Our God is not a mute idol; He calls. And when we follow, we will find Him.

[Robin Bupp is married to Caleb, and they are from many places east of the Mississippi (but are calling Michigan home for the foreseeable future). A former high school science teacher, Robin is slowly turning the two Bupp kiddos into tiny nerds while they teach her lots of things, especially humility and patience.]

Hindsight is 20/20

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://encounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

Sporting my pixie haircut in beautiful Colorado, 2012

As I begin to leave my college days behind and start to think about motherhood, the phrase “hindsight is 20/20” comes to mind. For instance, I remember when I decided to get a pixie haircut while working at a summer camp in Colorado—no one ever tells you that a pixie cut is not easier to maintain than simply throwing your hair into a ponytail. It was the summer of hat-hair, bobby pins, and desperate attempts to speed-up hair growth, but at least I made it to the top of a mountain. On a more serious note, I often look back on my first two years in college and how I spent many of my nights and weekends. It’s so much easier to see the negative effects that those decisions had on my life now, rather than when I was living in those moments. Hindsight is 20/20.

This makes me wonder if the disciples ever had similar thoughts about their journey with Jesus. Did Matthew ever look back on the day when Jesus approached him at the tax collector’s booth and said, “Follow me” (Matthew 9:9) and think, “Wow. I cannot believe how much things have changed…” Or, did the disciples look back on their last supper with Jesus and realize that it was then that He had promised the sending of the Holy Spirit?

In John 14:16-17 Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”

These words of encouragement from Jesus demonstrate the relationship between the trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father sent the Son Jesus to save the world and the Father also sent another advocate (the Holy Spirit) to be with us forever and continue the life-changing work of Jesus.

John 16:7 says, “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

It is difficult to understand that it is better for us to have the Holy Spirit living in our hearts than it would be to have the Son of Man walking besides us in the flesh. But, because it is written in the Word, we believe that it is true and invite the Holy Spirit to bring the transformative power of God into our lives. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter, Helper, and Advocate—He brings life into our weary souls, picks us up when we have fallen down, and fights on our behalf. These qualities are easy to simply write on paper and believe them to be true, but can we recognize when we have actually experienced the Holy Spirit in our lives?

If we apply the perspective of “hindsight is 20/20” to our spiritual lives, it’s possible that we could recognize the power of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts. Take a moment to truly invite the Holy Spirit into your heart and allow you to see His power throughout your life. Rather than being satisfied with seeing how God has shown up in our past, I suggest that we ask the Holy Spirit to be present in our daily lives. When this happens, when we can feel His power moving in our hearts daily, we truly will display the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

A life lived in obedience to the Holy Spirit’s influence on our hearts can have a significant impact on sharing the Gospel and God’s grace with others. When we are transformed by the Holy Spirit and display fruit of this transformation, it is an amazing testimony to the love of God. Let’s pray relentlessly to the Holy Spirit that we might be changed—that we might be able to fly and fully live in obedience to God’s call for our lives.

For a song reflecting on this week’s message, check out Beautiful Things by Gungor. It is one of my favorites!

[Megan Stephenson is a recent graduate of Grand Valley State University and works for a private education group in Grand Rapids as an Assistant Registrar. She loves spending time with her husband, Ben, trying out new breweries, restaurants, and local attractions. She also self-identifies as a crazy cat lady, despite owning no cats of her own, thanks to her loving and allergic husband.]