By Odon Bulamba (20th June 2003)
JOHN 4
Jesus carried on with his discussion with this Samaritan woman and you will see that Jesus answered questions that the woman didn’t ask and the woman would answer questions that Jesus didn’t ask.
Jesus asked the woman for water and the woman said, ‘you don’t have a bucket’. ‘I ask for water to drink and you speak about a bucket’. Jesus said, ‘if you want water I’ll give you water.’ and so forth. Sometimes we have to expect confusion in our lives when we say to the world something, the world will answer something else. When you say something to the devil, the devil will say something that is completely opposite to what you asked.
Jesus asked for water and then he started to ask the woman to get her husband and she said, ‘I don’t have a husband’. ‘But you have’, ‘no I don’t’ and the conversation that was about water become a problem of marriage. Was Jesus willing to marry this woman, no, so why did he want to know where her husband was? Because He had an aim, he wanted this woman to discover that He was the Messiah.
Jesus Christ didn’t drink the water and this woman didn’t give the water that He asked for. After that she went to tell all the people that I have seen the Messiah and all the people came. The woman discovered Jesus’ identity was not a Jew but the Messiah.
What identity do you give God? Is Jesus your mother, father, your friend, what identity do you give Him? Or is Jesus like a bank that gives you credits, so you go to Him and say, ‘Jesus I need that give it to me, Jesus give me,’ and you will take loan and loan after loan from Jesus but how are you going to pay back these loans? What is your boss’s identity and what is your own identity?
This woman thought that she was a Samaritan but she was not a real Samaritan because she knew there was a Messiah and Samaritans wouldn’t believe there was a Messiah. As for us Christians we have to make an effort to localise Jesus in our lives first. Jesus is the Son of God, He lives some where in heaven, or Jesus is my friend, we can give Him all the identities we want and that is true but we have to know that He is my saviour.
He is our saviour, that is the first thing and everywhere that we are we are together with him. Imagine if Jesus would visit your couple, what would you do? Imagine if Jesus would phone you and tell you tomorrow I’m coming to your house, what would you tell your wife? “Ah get ready, Jesus is coming.” ‘Where will Jesus come from?’ “No He said that He will come tomorrow, organise the house, organise yourself’. Maybe the sister will go to the hairdresser and maybe you will go too, and you will get ready but even a fly won’t go through the room on this day, if a fly comes there will be fly killer because there is a special guest and if we eat every day bread and salad, on this day that Jesus will come, the meal will change. It won’t be KFC anymore, I’ll say my, ‘wife let’s do something, how much money do I have in my pocket, I’ve got $500, so what can we prepare for Jesus?’
Sister what would you prepare for Jesus? “Roast chicken”. Here it is a really special meal and husbands will find their wives cook better meals for the special visitor than for themselves. I think on this day when Jesus will come, you will not be the same as you are with your husband on every other day. You will try to find a dress, or buy something new and everything will be nice and beautiful to look at.
Then while you are waiting for Jesus, Odon knocks on the door. The husband will say, ‘what’s the time, oh it’s 12 yes He must be here’. Maybe during this two minutes the husband will touch his hair and trousers and then say I will open the door now but the sister will say, ‘no wait a minute, mirror, mirror, am I right?’ OK open the door now, and when the brother opens the door Odon is there. What will be your reaction?
You will be disappointed and in your heart you will say, where does this one come from? The sister will say, welcome brother, how are you? But in the heart you will say let him go we are waiting for someone special, you must go now. Maybe where he is sitting is special covers and he might have damaged them in the way he is sitting and after three minutes, ‘oh I have to go now, may I pray for you?’ You know that he normally prays a long time, 15 minutes to waste. No problem brother we will pray later, thank you very much.
The man goes, you rearrange your chair and after three minutes someone knocks at the door. The husband says, ‘You open the door, this time I’m not opening it might be him again’. You look first out the window to see if it is him, if it’s not him you will say now is the time. A man comes in, someone you don’t know, and you will think this is the real Jesus, what will be the first thing you will do when he comes into your place? You’ll discern if this is really Jesus or not.
When Jesus comes into your couple what are you going to do brother and sister, everyone here. Will you open the door, what are you going to do? Bow down? Or say welcome, take a chair? What are you going to do? You’ll be scared? What are you going to do if Jesus comes in, maybe you are going to lose control. Sometimes you even forget what to say and sometimes you might even shake because you see the presence of something very powerful in your life and when Jesus is here instead of getting clothes, or bow down you might even faint, this happens. You might not even say welcome, or come here, you will say I’m tired, I’m really hot let me take off my clothes and you are a little bit confused, why that?
Because when the physical body we have discovers spiritual matters, this body becomes weak and when it becomes weak we might be in confusion. We might answer the way this Samaritan woman answered Jesus, she answered as if she would talk to an enemy. She talked to Jesus as if Jesus was low and she was very high to the point that she said, you don’t even have a bucket. Maybe Jesus didn’t have one there but had one at home. As for us when we come close to Jesus in our lives we must have a certain strategy, we must have a plan.
When your wedding was organised there was a program to follow, there was this, this and that, first thing the couple will come in and it will be that way, that way, that way. For someone who has never been married, they don’t have the time to think about how a wedding is organised they have other programs. Me, who is not married for example, you cannot ask me to welcome someone in my place like someone who is married. I know that if I go to Peter’s, his house will be a nice place because there is a woman living in that house but if you go to a bachelor’s place, don’t be surprised if you find a shoe on a chair. Don’t be amazed if you see the banana skin that he ate three days ago under the chair and when he realises that he will take it, apologise and throw it away. Maybe a glass that was used to drink water five days ago is still on the table and when you come in you can see that it is really unorganised and untidy and you will think is this really someone’s place or is it a pig living here.
‘Brother I’m going to pray for you in your bedroom’ and maybe he hasn’t changed his sheets for 15 days. You’ll find one blanket here and the pillow over in the corner, the clothes he took off are on the floor and you find the pens and sheets of paper all over the place and when you get close he will start wiping the chair and say you can sit here. This is normal life and these pictures are also pictures the spiritual life.
If really you are not married to Jesus and you want to live in a Christian life as a Christian bachelor you can be sure that your life will be disorganised and how do you become a bachelor Christian? It’s when you put Jesus outside your life, to say Jesus I want to organise myself, I want to make my own decisions, I don’t want you to tell me. Jesus feels pushed aside because he’s not there to assist you anymore, for example when you wear your shirt and when you put it on back-to-front, nobody is going to help you but if the brother does it today, the wife will say no, stop where are you going there, that is not the right way to wear a shirt, she will take it off and put it right and sometimes there are women that will say, I don’t like this shirt, take it off, Michael you won’t go to work with sandals like this, you will leave this here.
Michael will say, it’s cold and he wears his jacket, Sylvie will say this jacket you wore this three times, it’s dirty. So she will take the jacket and put it in the washing machine but he will say, I don’t have another one, I am cold now. She will say, ‘tomorrow you can buy another one’. Michael will think I suffer but she is right, and he will buy another one tomorrow.
This is the Christian way, Jesus is there to control us and say, this is missing you must put this here, you must put this at this place, this doesn’t deserve to be there because I am going to visit you. When He comes He watches how you welcome Him and watches how you get close. My sister imagine if you receive Jesus at your place and you prepare mussels and Jesus says, is that what I am going to eat and you say yes. How can we eat that, you might have to teach him how to eat mussels, he might eat it with the shell so you will have to say, this is the way we eat it at our place but I think that if you really welcome Jesus at your place you won’t prepare mussels, you will prepare something special.
Sometimes when you pray you know that you are going to meet your Lord, what do you bring as a meal. What do you give Jesus as a prayer, or perfume or nice smell? I give you a last example, one day there was a competition somewhere and for this competition everybody had to get well clothed and there will be a competition about it. So you must get ready accordingly and as for us who are going to judge we will look at the quality of clothes you wear and the perfume you wear. Everybody bought perfume and beautiful clothes and everything was expensive and a man looked and in his pocket he didn’t have $2000 and he looked at what people wore as clothes and it was very expensive. A pair of shoes would cost $3,000 for example while himself didn’t even have $2,000.
He went home, he took a ride on mower because this man didn’t have a beautiful car so he wore his boots and work clothes and didn’t have perfume so he had a hen in it’s place and took the waste from a hen and mixed it with water and put it on his body and went to the ceremony. When he went in, the person beside him looked at him and walked away. He got close to the second person and this person fled also. He made all his adversaries flee, he wouldn’t talk but the smell he had made the other people unable to complete the competition and eventually he was the only candidate, there was no competitors and he won the prize.
So what do we have to do to win the prize in our prayers, we must have a strategy and if we apply this strategy we will win. Has my prayer a good smell in God’s eyes or is my prayer a good smell only for man’s eyes. You can ask Odon to pray in English and you will find 20 mistakes but when someone who lived here and studied here prays in English all the words will be at the right place to the point the people will say I like how this person prays. This person knows how to pray but when Odon prays everybody is tired.
We are going to stop here, we have to analyse the life of this Samaritan woman and we must get ready all the time to meet Jesus and Jesus is also asking us for water to drink, what are we going to offer Him? Although He lives in our lives we are liars and drunkards, we are drunk with our sins but Jesus is there and accepts to be in our lives knowing that one day we are going to change and be transformed. The little faith we have, we have to give to Him and say, ‘Jesus this is all that I have. I know my faith is very small Lord, my faith is very small but you can help me to have a faith that won’t be thirsty anymore. You will help to have a faith that will help me to know who I am and I will discover you are really the Messiah so help me Lord to get ready to be always ready to meet you in my life and when we walk together I will be proud to walk with Jesus and when we sleep together with you Lord I will be proud to be with Jesus in my bed’. Make sure Jesus is always in your life
Showing posts with label Samaritan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Samaritan. Show all posts
Monday, October 4, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Jesus and the woman of Samaria (Part II)
JOHN 4
By Odon Bulamba (20th June 2003)
While Jesus was waiting for his disciples a woman came with a jar and this woman was a Samaritan. This woman was surprised to see someone by the well but she didn’t want to say a word, she just wanted to get water and go back home. But there was a man there and this man had the courage to talk.
Imagine yourself, you go in front of the door of someone and the owner of the house comes, what will you say, you might say, ‘oh sorry’ and you might move out of the way so this person can come in but for Jesus, this was not the case, he didn’t leave the place he was but started talking. The time was around midday and as you know at midday the sun is really strong and for Jesus this was the right time to talk. As Christians we must also have a notion of time. What time can I do that? Will it be God’s time or not? If you don’t have the notion of time in your Christian life it will be hard for you to move. It’s very easy to have the notion of time in our every day life especially when you are looking for material interests but when it’s about spiritual life, the notion of time is often forgotten.
Jesus was at the well at 12pm and He said to the woman, ‘give me some water to drink’. There was no hello or what is your name, Jesus didn’t want to know all of this, he just said, ‘Woman give me some water to drink,’ that’s it. Imagine someone you meet on your way and that person asks you, ‘give me that’ using the imperative form, what will you say in the depth of your heart, maybe you will say, ‘oh this person is rude, this person doesn’t have a good education, he doesn’t say hello, I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me, what bravery’.
This woman didn’t answer, ‘I will give you or not’, her answer was, ‘you are a Jew’. How will you explain that? Jesus asks for water to drink and He is answered, ‘but you are a Jew’. Is the fact to be a Jew enough to quench the thirst? Does it mean that if you are a Jew you will be satisfied and never need water? Or to be a Jew, does it mean you don’t have the right to ask for water?
So let’s study something here, when you see someone, can you know if my brother is French, German or English or something else? When my brother sees me, does he know which country in Africa I am from? No, that is not easy. This woman answered precisely and if you read her answer, you can see she was 100% sure that Jesus was a Jew, but Jesus was not a Jew as you know. He was not as this woman thought that He was but this woman wanted to confirm that Jesus was from this nationality.
We also ask the wrong questions to the wrong person at times. Sometimes we ask the devil our rights. You will ask your body for example, give me time to pray but your body will say, but you forget that it is the time to eat now and you know you have to go somewhere to visit someone and you know that visitors are coming soon when you will say, give me my rights satan, satan will answer you in another way to show to you that you are guilty, to show you that you are not able to ask God what you are asking.
The first thing that satan plays with is the identity of a person, do you know you are a Christian but you don’t need to pray three times a day, you are a Methodist. A Methodist only follows Wesley’s sayings and He only prayed once a week so leave this for the Pentecostal. Once I was with a man here and I talked with him about the Gateway Church and I said in this church people praise and sing and he said this is a Pentecostal spirit, people who respect themselves can’t do what they do, that is why you see in the choir there are only young people there. It is like there are bad people there and that is why you have to be careful, look at their hair the way, they are wearing it and the way the dress themselves, they don’t even look like Christians and so for him the outlook was enough. But for us Methodists, each man has a tie and we respect each other in the church and that was the identity that he gave me. So for him Pentecostals don’t have the right to worship God the way they do so don’t speak about anything positive about the Pentecostals in front of the Methodists.
So because of that, this woman said, ‘you are a Jew so you don’t have the right to ask from me something to drink’. Jesus didn’t ask for water to wash Himself, He didn’t ask water to wash his clothes or his feet but he asked for water to drink because He was thirsty. And as for you, are you thirsty in your life and when you are thirsty what do you do? When you are thirsty and you drink juice are you satisfied, or beer are you satisfied? Some people might say yes and some might say no, but as for me, when I am thirsty, even if I drink two litres of fanta my body will still ask for water.
When you are thirsty your body needs water but if you are given (for example) fanta, you will start analysing this fanta, the chemicals are there and the amount of sugar, sucrose and so forth and you will think of your health and say, ‘this fanta will destroy my health one day.’ Because I have a tongue let me drink a little bit and if I drink only a little bit today it won’t destroy my health. But water, even if you drink 5L your health won’t be injured. Of course you can drink fanta today and tomorrow, and people will start offering and you will find out in 10 years you will need 10L of fanta but during that time the sucrose and the chemicals will work in your blood like a drug.
Sometimes a drug can stay in the head for 20 years.
When we have a spiritual thirst we must drink water, we must not drink the spiritual coke. This means we must not live an artificial life, pretending we are Christians when we are not, to accept the human solution instead of committing yourself to God’s hand to find God’s solutions.
A man wanted to be helped by God and his wife made him suffer a lot and this wife didn’t want to do a service that this man required and this man was in his house like the woman and the woman was like the husband. As you might know, in some cultures the man has a special place in the bed to sleep and the woman has a special place also and they say the man is always at the front and the woman is always at the back but this woman changed the order in the bedroom. The husband had to wake up very early in the morning to make tea and bring it back to the wife and this woman would say, ‘praise the Lord because I have found a husband of good quality.’ It wasn’t bad that the man would help but it got to the stage where the woman would order the husband to do what ever she wanted, ‘oh go and see the pan on the stove, oh Michael can’t you see what Nathanael is doing there, so get up and do that.’
It started to change their Christian lives. With their eyes people would think that this man would humiliate himself and love this wife very much but they weren’t living the Christian life but were living an artificial life, a life that would look Christian but was not any more and was controlled by the devil because they broke the law.
So when the woman said to Jesus, ‘you are a Jew’, He said, ‘if you knew the man who talks to you, and if you knew what God can give, if you give me water to drink I would give you also water to drink and you would not be thirsty anymore.’ If Jesus also had this water, why didn’t He drink His water Himself not to be thirsty anymore but He said to the woman, ‘and I will give you water and you will not be thirsty anymore’, when He Himself is thirsty. Can you imagine that? You are hungry and you ask for food and you say to the person, if you give me food, I will give you something to eat and you will not be hungry anymore in your life.
Jesus wanted to teach this woman something, He said you have something of little value but if you accept to give this thing to some one else you will find more than what you have. This woman was proud, this well has been given by our ancestor Jacob but Jesus said, ‘you talk about a well but as for me, I am the source of water. I produce water’.
Sometimes the well can be dry if the source cannot give water to this well and there are little things that Jesus asks for in our lives, He says give me these small things and in exchange I will give you the great things. ‘Oh God help me, I need money’, (for example) and God says, ‘you have 20c in your pocket, give this 20c’. How can I give this 20c just like that? How can I give 20c to this pastor, he is a thief and I don’t even know what he did with the money last month and there will be reasons. Jesus can say, ‘don’t give me 20c just give me two cents’, as this woman came with the jar, Jesus didn’t ask for the whole jar to drink, Jesus asked for a small quantity to drink, maybe it was a litre, maybe two litres at maximum if Jesus could drink a lot and the water would stay in the jar.
How many times as for us Christians when God asks for a little part of what we have, we resist to give. When God asks you for two minutes to pray you can’t find this time to pray when you can watch the rugby match for two hours. Here in NZ when the All Blacks win, you will see all the people excited, ‘today we have to watch the match’ and people will stand and watch it. There is an advertisement on tv where someone who wants to watch the rugby match but doesn’t have sky on his tv (cable) and he really wanted to find a tv and he could see people watching the match so he came in.
Before arriving there he suffered, and when he walked in, by mistake he tripped over the cord and the cord came out of the switch and the tv came down and the people who were there watching the match changed their attitude because he destroyed their program and everything that they wanted so this man had to run. At the end you can see that you need to enrol with sky to see also what others can see.
It happens sometimes when you touch human beings lives, people are against you because you destroyed their program and touched their interest. You cannot say when people are in the stadium there is no match anymore let’s pray. People will leave one after another and you might stay alone.
By Odon Bulamba (20th June 2003)
While Jesus was waiting for his disciples a woman came with a jar and this woman was a Samaritan. This woman was surprised to see someone by the well but she didn’t want to say a word, she just wanted to get water and go back home. But there was a man there and this man had the courage to talk.
Imagine yourself, you go in front of the door of someone and the owner of the house comes, what will you say, you might say, ‘oh sorry’ and you might move out of the way so this person can come in but for Jesus, this was not the case, he didn’t leave the place he was but started talking. The time was around midday and as you know at midday the sun is really strong and for Jesus this was the right time to talk. As Christians we must also have a notion of time. What time can I do that? Will it be God’s time or not? If you don’t have the notion of time in your Christian life it will be hard for you to move. It’s very easy to have the notion of time in our every day life especially when you are looking for material interests but when it’s about spiritual life, the notion of time is often forgotten.
Jesus was at the well at 12pm and He said to the woman, ‘give me some water to drink’. There was no hello or what is your name, Jesus didn’t want to know all of this, he just said, ‘Woman give me some water to drink,’ that’s it. Imagine someone you meet on your way and that person asks you, ‘give me that’ using the imperative form, what will you say in the depth of your heart, maybe you will say, ‘oh this person is rude, this person doesn’t have a good education, he doesn’t say hello, I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me, what bravery’.
This woman didn’t answer, ‘I will give you or not’, her answer was, ‘you are a Jew’. How will you explain that? Jesus asks for water to drink and He is answered, ‘but you are a Jew’. Is the fact to be a Jew enough to quench the thirst? Does it mean that if you are a Jew you will be satisfied and never need water? Or to be a Jew, does it mean you don’t have the right to ask for water?
So let’s study something here, when you see someone, can you know if my brother is French, German or English or something else? When my brother sees me, does he know which country in Africa I am from? No, that is not easy. This woman answered precisely and if you read her answer, you can see she was 100% sure that Jesus was a Jew, but Jesus was not a Jew as you know. He was not as this woman thought that He was but this woman wanted to confirm that Jesus was from this nationality.
We also ask the wrong questions to the wrong person at times. Sometimes we ask the devil our rights. You will ask your body for example, give me time to pray but your body will say, but you forget that it is the time to eat now and you know you have to go somewhere to visit someone and you know that visitors are coming soon when you will say, give me my rights satan, satan will answer you in another way to show to you that you are guilty, to show you that you are not able to ask God what you are asking.
The first thing that satan plays with is the identity of a person, do you know you are a Christian but you don’t need to pray three times a day, you are a Methodist. A Methodist only follows Wesley’s sayings and He only prayed once a week so leave this for the Pentecostal. Once I was with a man here and I talked with him about the Gateway Church and I said in this church people praise and sing and he said this is a Pentecostal spirit, people who respect themselves can’t do what they do, that is why you see in the choir there are only young people there. It is like there are bad people there and that is why you have to be careful, look at their hair the way, they are wearing it and the way the dress themselves, they don’t even look like Christians and so for him the outlook was enough. But for us Methodists, each man has a tie and we respect each other in the church and that was the identity that he gave me. So for him Pentecostals don’t have the right to worship God the way they do so don’t speak about anything positive about the Pentecostals in front of the Methodists.
So because of that, this woman said, ‘you are a Jew so you don’t have the right to ask from me something to drink’. Jesus didn’t ask for water to wash Himself, He didn’t ask water to wash his clothes or his feet but he asked for water to drink because He was thirsty. And as for you, are you thirsty in your life and when you are thirsty what do you do? When you are thirsty and you drink juice are you satisfied, or beer are you satisfied? Some people might say yes and some might say no, but as for me, when I am thirsty, even if I drink two litres of fanta my body will still ask for water.
When you are thirsty your body needs water but if you are given (for example) fanta, you will start analysing this fanta, the chemicals are there and the amount of sugar, sucrose and so forth and you will think of your health and say, ‘this fanta will destroy my health one day.’ Because I have a tongue let me drink a little bit and if I drink only a little bit today it won’t destroy my health. But water, even if you drink 5L your health won’t be injured. Of course you can drink fanta today and tomorrow, and people will start offering and you will find out in 10 years you will need 10L of fanta but during that time the sucrose and the chemicals will work in your blood like a drug.
Sometimes a drug can stay in the head for 20 years.
When we have a spiritual thirst we must drink water, we must not drink the spiritual coke. This means we must not live an artificial life, pretending we are Christians when we are not, to accept the human solution instead of committing yourself to God’s hand to find God’s solutions.
A man wanted to be helped by God and his wife made him suffer a lot and this wife didn’t want to do a service that this man required and this man was in his house like the woman and the woman was like the husband. As you might know, in some cultures the man has a special place in the bed to sleep and the woman has a special place also and they say the man is always at the front and the woman is always at the back but this woman changed the order in the bedroom. The husband had to wake up very early in the morning to make tea and bring it back to the wife and this woman would say, ‘praise the Lord because I have found a husband of good quality.’ It wasn’t bad that the man would help but it got to the stage where the woman would order the husband to do what ever she wanted, ‘oh go and see the pan on the stove, oh Michael can’t you see what Nathanael is doing there, so get up and do that.’
It started to change their Christian lives. With their eyes people would think that this man would humiliate himself and love this wife very much but they weren’t living the Christian life but were living an artificial life, a life that would look Christian but was not any more and was controlled by the devil because they broke the law.
So when the woman said to Jesus, ‘you are a Jew’, He said, ‘if you knew the man who talks to you, and if you knew what God can give, if you give me water to drink I would give you also water to drink and you would not be thirsty anymore.’ If Jesus also had this water, why didn’t He drink His water Himself not to be thirsty anymore but He said to the woman, ‘and I will give you water and you will not be thirsty anymore’, when He Himself is thirsty. Can you imagine that? You are hungry and you ask for food and you say to the person, if you give me food, I will give you something to eat and you will not be hungry anymore in your life.
Jesus wanted to teach this woman something, He said you have something of little value but if you accept to give this thing to some one else you will find more than what you have. This woman was proud, this well has been given by our ancestor Jacob but Jesus said, ‘you talk about a well but as for me, I am the source of water. I produce water’.
Sometimes the well can be dry if the source cannot give water to this well and there are little things that Jesus asks for in our lives, He says give me these small things and in exchange I will give you the great things. ‘Oh God help me, I need money’, (for example) and God says, ‘you have 20c in your pocket, give this 20c’. How can I give this 20c just like that? How can I give 20c to this pastor, he is a thief and I don’t even know what he did with the money last month and there will be reasons. Jesus can say, ‘don’t give me 20c just give me two cents’, as this woman came with the jar, Jesus didn’t ask for the whole jar to drink, Jesus asked for a small quantity to drink, maybe it was a litre, maybe two litres at maximum if Jesus could drink a lot and the water would stay in the jar.
How many times as for us Christians when God asks for a little part of what we have, we resist to give. When God asks you for two minutes to pray you can’t find this time to pray when you can watch the rugby match for two hours. Here in NZ when the All Blacks win, you will see all the people excited, ‘today we have to watch the match’ and people will stand and watch it. There is an advertisement on tv where someone who wants to watch the rugby match but doesn’t have sky on his tv (cable) and he really wanted to find a tv and he could see people watching the match so he came in.
Before arriving there he suffered, and when he walked in, by mistake he tripped over the cord and the cord came out of the switch and the tv came down and the people who were there watching the match changed their attitude because he destroyed their program and everything that they wanted so this man had to run. At the end you can see that you need to enrol with sky to see also what others can see.
It happens sometimes when you touch human beings lives, people are against you because you destroyed their program and touched their interest. You cannot say when people are in the stadium there is no match anymore let’s pray. People will leave one after another and you might stay alone.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Jesus and the woman of Samaria
JOHN 4
By Odon Bulamba (20th June 2003)
We are going to get an exhortation on a very famous passage that is known by nearly every body and it is the story about the Samaritan woman. It is in the book of John chapter four. One day when Jesus was baptising people with his disciples, the Pharisees learned that Jesus was baptising more people than the number of those being baptised by the Pharisees. This created a spirit of hatred and distress in the heart of the Pharisees. The Pharisees started having thoughts to destroy Jesus’ life and because of that Jesus decided to leave Judea to go to Galilee because if he stayed there he might be stoned because the Pharisees would say, ‘how come this man gets all the souls for him, even John the Baptist didn’t baptise that many people’. Jealousy was there.
Jesus decided to leave Judea and he couldn’t go to Galilee without going through Samaria and there were no cars in those days and Jesus didn’t have a horse to walk with. In my country when a chief goes somewhere, people will carry him on their shoulders and the chief will sit on an arm chair and there will be a stick to carry him and he will be carried so the chief doesn’t have to walk. But Jesus was the king more than a chief and yet he walked on his feet where ever he went; what humility.
I think even here in NZ it’s not often we will see our prime minister going from Wellington to Hamilton by foot, even by car she might think she is wasting her time, maybe she thinks she will be very tired if she goes by car and she chooses to use a plane. Before going on the plane this plane must be checked very carefully and check that the pilot hasn’t drunk before starting. There is fear in their lives but in Jesus life there was no fear, especially the fear of death was not there. Maybe you will tell me that when Jesus was arrested and they wanted to throw Him somewhere that He feared, no He didn’t want to die at that time because He hadn’t fulfilled the mission that He had and when the time to die came, Peter tried to defend him and what was Jesus’ answer? ‘Go away satan’ and secondly he said, ‘if I need an army my father who is in Heaven will do something, there will be an army of angels down here. But because the time is here, I have to die and that is it’.
So when Jesus was on His way He arrived somewhere called Sychar and this place is in Samaria. Jesus was tired and he decided to sit by a well and a woman came to get some water and Jesus started talking to her, ‘woman give me water to drink.’ The woman said, ‘I don’t know you, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan, how can I give you water to drink that is not possible’.
When Jesus arrived in Samaria He left Judea and arrived in another atmosphere, or another climate that is different to Judea’s climate and while on His way He got tired which is normal. It’s like you and me as Christians, the day we were saved we had the courage to be Christians and to read the Bible and to pray and to go to church each time, and there were lots of success in our every day life and there were lots of transformations in different things.
We discovered the joy to be Christians but people around us started to criticise this life. The devil maybe said how come these people keep shaking my kingdom like that, I keep losing souls and they keep speaking about Jesus everywhere and all of a sudden the devil raised an army against you, laziness started coming, tiredness started attacking and we said it’s not good enough to stay a spiritual baby we have to carry on, we must leave Judea to go to Galilee but we cannot spare to go through Samaria.
Once arrived in Samaria we feel tired sometimes with Christian life and sometimes we are disappointed with circumstances and sometimes we ask ourselves does God exist or not because when we ask, we don’t get. We want God to move but it’s not time for God to move so we think it’s time to put this Bible aside and leave it. If God wants to kill me, He can kill me, so be it. It happened to Even with prophets. Jonah too went through that, Moses and others knew difficult situations in their life.
When you are at the end of your limit, this is the time that God moves. When our forces are finished, that is the time that God’s forces start. When our thoughts are limited, it is at that time that God’s thoughts start.
Jesus as God was tired and He was in Sychar. Some versions of the Bible speak about Sycham and it is the same thing. Sychar means liar or drunk and Jesus arrived at Sychar and that is where he will have a rest. Sychar which means liar and Jesus wants to have a rest there. Sychar which means drunk and Jesus wants to have a rest there. Jesus wants to stay there because there is something useful there; a well. If a well had not been there, Jesus could not have stopped at Sychar, He would have gone somewhere else and sometimes we live where the liars and the drunks live but we must look to see if there is a well in their lives or not. Is there a well in their house or not because when we live with drunkards and they need a drink can I give them water instead of beer when I’m there or not.
That is what Jesus wanted to teach us there, Jesus said there it is, I’m going to have a rest and you my disciples go and get something to eat. Jesus who could transform bread and multiply the fish sent the disciples to get food. Him whom the devil said, you can change a stone into bread and He really could do that, He doesn’t want to turn the stones into bread but asks the disciples to get bread. How many times do we send our children into the gospel? How many times do we send our brothers and friends into the gospel, my brother I have a problem, can you find a verse in the Bible that can help me with my problem and your friend will say, maybe you know the Bible better than me, but you encourage them to try to find something that is good for you. When you correct others, help them and advise them, do you send them to find a spiritual food? If you don’t do it, it is time to do it.
By Odon Bulamba (20th June 2003)
We are going to get an exhortation on a very famous passage that is known by nearly every body and it is the story about the Samaritan woman. It is in the book of John chapter four. One day when Jesus was baptising people with his disciples, the Pharisees learned that Jesus was baptising more people than the number of those being baptised by the Pharisees. This created a spirit of hatred and distress in the heart of the Pharisees. The Pharisees started having thoughts to destroy Jesus’ life and because of that Jesus decided to leave Judea to go to Galilee because if he stayed there he might be stoned because the Pharisees would say, ‘how come this man gets all the souls for him, even John the Baptist didn’t baptise that many people’. Jealousy was there.
Jesus decided to leave Judea and he couldn’t go to Galilee without going through Samaria and there were no cars in those days and Jesus didn’t have a horse to walk with. In my country when a chief goes somewhere, people will carry him on their shoulders and the chief will sit on an arm chair and there will be a stick to carry him and he will be carried so the chief doesn’t have to walk. But Jesus was the king more than a chief and yet he walked on his feet where ever he went; what humility.
I think even here in NZ it’s not often we will see our prime minister going from Wellington to Hamilton by foot, even by car she might think she is wasting her time, maybe she thinks she will be very tired if she goes by car and she chooses to use a plane. Before going on the plane this plane must be checked very carefully and check that the pilot hasn’t drunk before starting. There is fear in their lives but in Jesus life there was no fear, especially the fear of death was not there. Maybe you will tell me that when Jesus was arrested and they wanted to throw Him somewhere that He feared, no He didn’t want to die at that time because He hadn’t fulfilled the mission that He had and when the time to die came, Peter tried to defend him and what was Jesus’ answer? ‘Go away satan’ and secondly he said, ‘if I need an army my father who is in Heaven will do something, there will be an army of angels down here. But because the time is here, I have to die and that is it’.
So when Jesus was on His way He arrived somewhere called Sychar and this place is in Samaria. Jesus was tired and he decided to sit by a well and a woman came to get some water and Jesus started talking to her, ‘woman give me water to drink.’ The woman said, ‘I don’t know you, you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan, how can I give you water to drink that is not possible’.
When Jesus arrived in Samaria He left Judea and arrived in another atmosphere, or another climate that is different to Judea’s climate and while on His way He got tired which is normal. It’s like you and me as Christians, the day we were saved we had the courage to be Christians and to read the Bible and to pray and to go to church each time, and there were lots of success in our every day life and there were lots of transformations in different things.
We discovered the joy to be Christians but people around us started to criticise this life. The devil maybe said how come these people keep shaking my kingdom like that, I keep losing souls and they keep speaking about Jesus everywhere and all of a sudden the devil raised an army against you, laziness started coming, tiredness started attacking and we said it’s not good enough to stay a spiritual baby we have to carry on, we must leave Judea to go to Galilee but we cannot spare to go through Samaria.
Once arrived in Samaria we feel tired sometimes with Christian life and sometimes we are disappointed with circumstances and sometimes we ask ourselves does God exist or not because when we ask, we don’t get. We want God to move but it’s not time for God to move so we think it’s time to put this Bible aside and leave it. If God wants to kill me, He can kill me, so be it. It happened to Even with prophets. Jonah too went through that, Moses and others knew difficult situations in their life.
When you are at the end of your limit, this is the time that God moves. When our forces are finished, that is the time that God’s forces start. When our thoughts are limited, it is at that time that God’s thoughts start.
Jesus as God was tired and He was in Sychar. Some versions of the Bible speak about Sycham and it is the same thing. Sychar means liar or drunk and Jesus arrived at Sychar and that is where he will have a rest. Sychar which means liar and Jesus wants to have a rest there. Sychar which means drunk and Jesus wants to have a rest there. Jesus wants to stay there because there is something useful there; a well. If a well had not been there, Jesus could not have stopped at Sychar, He would have gone somewhere else and sometimes we live where the liars and the drunks live but we must look to see if there is a well in their lives or not. Is there a well in their house or not because when we live with drunkards and they need a drink can I give them water instead of beer when I’m there or not.
That is what Jesus wanted to teach us there, Jesus said there it is, I’m going to have a rest and you my disciples go and get something to eat. Jesus who could transform bread and multiply the fish sent the disciples to get food. Him whom the devil said, you can change a stone into bread and He really could do that, He doesn’t want to turn the stones into bread but asks the disciples to get bread. How many times do we send our children into the gospel? How many times do we send our brothers and friends into the gospel, my brother I have a problem, can you find a verse in the Bible that can help me with my problem and your friend will say, maybe you know the Bible better than me, but you encourage them to try to find something that is good for you. When you correct others, help them and advise them, do you send them to find a spiritual food? If you don’t do it, it is time to do it.
Friday, May 8, 2009
The Samaritan Woman (part III)
John 4
The 2nd food of Jesus was to do the work that had been given to him. Are we doing the work that has been given to us? It will be hard when Christ comes back and asks you, “from five coins, what have you produced”? What will you tell God that day? Will you tell God, “I put it under my carpet so that I might not be condemned tomorrow?”
God will never accept that because he said whoever will be given some and doesn’t produce anything from it, God will take it away from you and you will not enter the Kingdom of God. Many people say that grace is sufficient and “my name is already in the book of life” but we have to work and work and work.
If we don't work, we don't feed Jesus because he said this is His food, to fulfil God's will. Many people today don't want to work and Paul said whoever doesn't work is not entitled to eat. This is the Word of God which a message for us that if we don’t work spiritually, we don’t have the right to eat spiritually. Those who eat the Word of God, and those who take the blessings from God without working are against the Word of God. One day God will ask you, “why did you take the blessings while you didn't work?” It’s the same with tithing; God gives you the money and he is in the corner waiting for you to give tithe and if you don't give it you become a thief and automatically you are condemned and judged as a thief and many people will pay the price for that dearly.
I don't know any business company that would keep you employed if you don't work. I don't know if there is such a boss who would keep employing you doing nothing in your office. I can assure you that without work you cannot please Jesus so let's make an effort to please Jesus. Let’s work. This work is a personal work.
What kind of work do I do? And to whom do I do it? And what is the kind of work that I do in the church? And if I don't do it, why don't I do it? You must have a reason to justify yourself.
One day in the church children were playing around the chair on the altar that was reserved for the pastor. While the children were playing, they accidently broke one of the feet of the chair. One of the children decided to take the broken foot and place it back under the chair and they believed it was perfect and nobody would know. They agreed to keep it a secret because they thought they will be in trouble if they say something.
The next Sunday a great bishop was coming to this church and the pastor said this chair (which is the chair of honor) is where the bishop will sit. Every Sunday, different peole in the church take turns to look after the things of the church. The next Sunday, before the bishop arrived, a brother and sister in the Lord came to check everything inside the church and everything looked fine so they turned around and walked out.
When the bishop was there with his big hat and his robe, he blessed the church and then he was given the chair. He looked around and sat down. When he sat down, the foot came out and the chair fell down. They came to pick it up it was too late, what a shame in front of all these Christians in front of thousands of Christians, a Bishop who falls down because of one negligent thing of a Christian. The pastor looked around and wondered what's going to happen and who was to blame. There was no chair to replace this one and the bishop lost his joy.
After the service the pastor said I must know who organised the chair. The brother and sister said, “we looked at it yesterday and it wasn't broken”. But the truth was, they didn’t look properly, they didn’t even touch it. This is the kind of mistakes that we make in churches; we destroy things and we replace them to give an appearance that looks like truth so that when Jesus comes in our lives and He wants to sit down; He sometimes falls down and we ridicule Him in front of the world.
SUMMARY
- We must do the work that God gives to us
- We must give our tithes to God
- Ask yourself, what do I do for God? What do I do for church?
- Keep the truth
For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com
The 2nd food of Jesus was to do the work that had been given to him. Are we doing the work that has been given to us? It will be hard when Christ comes back and asks you, “from five coins, what have you produced”? What will you tell God that day? Will you tell God, “I put it under my carpet so that I might not be condemned tomorrow?”
God will never accept that because he said whoever will be given some and doesn’t produce anything from it, God will take it away from you and you will not enter the Kingdom of God. Many people say that grace is sufficient and “my name is already in the book of life” but we have to work and work and work.
If we don't work, we don't feed Jesus because he said this is His food, to fulfil God's will. Many people today don't want to work and Paul said whoever doesn't work is not entitled to eat. This is the Word of God which a message for us that if we don’t work spiritually, we don’t have the right to eat spiritually. Those who eat the Word of God, and those who take the blessings from God without working are against the Word of God. One day God will ask you, “why did you take the blessings while you didn't work?” It’s the same with tithing; God gives you the money and he is in the corner waiting for you to give tithe and if you don't give it you become a thief and automatically you are condemned and judged as a thief and many people will pay the price for that dearly.
I don't know any business company that would keep you employed if you don't work. I don't know if there is such a boss who would keep employing you doing nothing in your office. I can assure you that without work you cannot please Jesus so let's make an effort to please Jesus. Let’s work. This work is a personal work.
What kind of work do I do? And to whom do I do it? And what is the kind of work that I do in the church? And if I don't do it, why don't I do it? You must have a reason to justify yourself.
One day in the church children were playing around the chair on the altar that was reserved for the pastor. While the children were playing, they accidently broke one of the feet of the chair. One of the children decided to take the broken foot and place it back under the chair and they believed it was perfect and nobody would know. They agreed to keep it a secret because they thought they will be in trouble if they say something.
The next Sunday a great bishop was coming to this church and the pastor said this chair (which is the chair of honor) is where the bishop will sit. Every Sunday, different peole in the church take turns to look after the things of the church. The next Sunday, before the bishop arrived, a brother and sister in the Lord came to check everything inside the church and everything looked fine so they turned around and walked out.
When the bishop was there with his big hat and his robe, he blessed the church and then he was given the chair. He looked around and sat down. When he sat down, the foot came out and the chair fell down. They came to pick it up it was too late, what a shame in front of all these Christians in front of thousands of Christians, a Bishop who falls down because of one negligent thing of a Christian. The pastor looked around and wondered what's going to happen and who was to blame. There was no chair to replace this one and the bishop lost his joy.
After the service the pastor said I must know who organised the chair. The brother and sister said, “we looked at it yesterday and it wasn't broken”. But the truth was, they didn’t look properly, they didn’t even touch it. This is the kind of mistakes that we make in churches; we destroy things and we replace them to give an appearance that looks like truth so that when Jesus comes in our lives and He wants to sit down; He sometimes falls down and we ridicule Him in front of the world.
SUMMARY
- We must do the work that God gives to us
- We must give our tithes to God
- Ask yourself, what do I do for God? What do I do for church?
- Keep the truth
For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Samaritan Woman (Part II)
John 4
When the disciples asked Jesus to eat, he answered by saying, “my food is to do the will of the father”. We can ask ourselves the same question, what is our food?
The food of Jesus was to first obey God's will and secondly to the fulfill the work that God had given him. So what is your food? My food is foufou and beans and I think Michael’s is cheese and maybe for Michelle it is pâté maybe for Pete it's meat and for Joan it might be a rice. Each one has thier own food. The most important thing in Christian life is obedience to the Word of God. Whoever disobeys the Word of God will never live because obedience is the beginning of wisdom, it is the beginning of spiritual growth, it is the beginning of blessings, and it is the beginning of feeling the presence of God in your life.
God asks you to obey the Word of God first in your life and when you do, you will never have problems with your neighbours or with your government or with anyone. It is difficult to see Michelle obeying the Word of God and being arrested tomorrow for stealing. It will never happen. If Pete is obeying the Word of God he will never be arrested tomorrow for murder, because this contradicts the Word of God. We cannot become condemned because we obey the Word of God unless we are asked not to talk about this will of God and in that case we can be arrested and you know many people are arrested because of this Word and not because of their sins. But if you obey God’s Word, you will have a perfect life in the Lord.
SUMMARY
Obey the Word of God
For the full the message please email: littlebethelhem@windowslive.com
When the disciples asked Jesus to eat, he answered by saying, “my food is to do the will of the father”. We can ask ourselves the same question, what is our food?
The food of Jesus was to first obey God's will and secondly to the fulfill the work that God had given him. So what is your food? My food is foufou and beans and I think Michael’s is cheese and maybe for Michelle it is pâté maybe for Pete it's meat and for Joan it might be a rice. Each one has thier own food. The most important thing in Christian life is obedience to the Word of God. Whoever disobeys the Word of God will never live because obedience is the beginning of wisdom, it is the beginning of spiritual growth, it is the beginning of blessings, and it is the beginning of feeling the presence of God in your life.
God asks you to obey the Word of God first in your life and when you do, you will never have problems with your neighbours or with your government or with anyone. It is difficult to see Michelle obeying the Word of God and being arrested tomorrow for stealing. It will never happen. If Pete is obeying the Word of God he will never be arrested tomorrow for murder, because this contradicts the Word of God. We cannot become condemned because we obey the Word of God unless we are asked not to talk about this will of God and in that case we can be arrested and you know many people are arrested because of this Word and not because of their sins. But if you obey God’s Word, you will have a perfect life in the Lord.
SUMMARY
Obey the Word of God
For the full the message please email: littlebethelhem@windowslive.com
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The Samaritan Woman (part I)
By Odon Bulamba (summary only - 8 Oct, 04)
JOHN 4
Jews were not allowed to go through Samaria but Jesus did. Many Christians today have this problem, because they had heard bad things about others they decide to avoid them and this is not good. Jesus said to pray for your enemies.
When Jesus and his disciples entered Samaria they were surprised to find no one stopped them and the food was good there: they found that all that their ancestors had told them was not true.
Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman and asked her questions. Many people today are visited by God and God asks them something and we say, "who are you to ask that? Don't you know this is my right, it's my life". Or we say, "give me some time".
The Samaritan woman didn’t know what God could give. Ask yourself what can God give you and what can you give to God also. Remember, when you feed the hungry you feed Jesus.
In the verse 11 Jesus asked for water and she said you don't have a bucket. Many Christians are like that, the thing is clear but they complicate it and make problems from nothing. When problems are really there, this is the time that they pretend there aren't any.
She said this well is from Jacob and forgot that Jesus is also from Jacob. Jesus was also the creator of Jacob (Romans 9:10-13). The woman asked "are you bigger than Jacob?" because this of a lack of knowledge and sometimes us Christians also speak foolishly before God, our friends, our children and it makes us stupid because we lack knowledge of the Word of God.
Jesus said, call your husband. This woman might have thought Jesus wanted to marry her but Jesus didn't worry about what she might think but asked anyway, because He cared more about her soul than about His reputation. Jesus knows our hearts and knew she had been married five times. Maybe the disciples wondered why Jesus was with the woman and thought that was why he sent them away so he could be alone with her. Sometimes God asks us to do things that don't make sense, sometimes God puts us in difficult situations to see if we can respect him.
SUMMARY
- Don't avoid people you don't like but pray for them
- Don't believe reports from others, they might be wrong
- Listen when God speaks to you, especially through your conscience
- Ask what God can give you and also what you can give to God
- Don't complicate situations and don't cover up problems
- Read and listen to the Word of God so you will not lack knowledge
- Don't worry about your reputation when God asks you to do something
For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com
JOHN 4
Jews were not allowed to go through Samaria but Jesus did. Many Christians today have this problem, because they had heard bad things about others they decide to avoid them and this is not good. Jesus said to pray for your enemies.
When Jesus and his disciples entered Samaria they were surprised to find no one stopped them and the food was good there: they found that all that their ancestors had told them was not true.
Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman and asked her questions. Many people today are visited by God and God asks them something and we say, "who are you to ask that? Don't you know this is my right, it's my life". Or we say, "give me some time".
The Samaritan woman didn’t know what God could give. Ask yourself what can God give you and what can you give to God also. Remember, when you feed the hungry you feed Jesus.
In the verse 11 Jesus asked for water and she said you don't have a bucket. Many Christians are like that, the thing is clear but they complicate it and make problems from nothing. When problems are really there, this is the time that they pretend there aren't any.
She said this well is from Jacob and forgot that Jesus is also from Jacob. Jesus was also the creator of Jacob (Romans 9:10-13). The woman asked "are you bigger than Jacob?" because this of a lack of knowledge and sometimes us Christians also speak foolishly before God, our friends, our children and it makes us stupid because we lack knowledge of the Word of God.
Jesus said, call your husband. This woman might have thought Jesus wanted to marry her but Jesus didn't worry about what she might think but asked anyway, because He cared more about her soul than about His reputation. Jesus knows our hearts and knew she had been married five times. Maybe the disciples wondered why Jesus was with the woman and thought that was why he sent them away so he could be alone with her. Sometimes God asks us to do things that don't make sense, sometimes God puts us in difficult situations to see if we can respect him.
SUMMARY
- Don't avoid people you don't like but pray for them
- Don't believe reports from others, they might be wrong
- Listen when God speaks to you, especially through your conscience
- Ask what God can give you and also what you can give to God
- Don't complicate situations and don't cover up problems
- Read and listen to the Word of God so you will not lack knowledge
- Don't worry about your reputation when God asks you to do something
For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com
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