Lena's Journalin' to John 4 Today

Whenever you read books, do you find yourself placing your life inside of the stories? This is a good thing to do, for you can learn valuable lessons and make choices without really having to live out the actual experience yourself. This is wisdom to learn from someone else’s life.
When we read of the life of Christ, that’s what we do, we become as Christ, for we call ourselves Christians, right? One’s who are like Christ is/was? One’s who follow Christ (-s pathway)?
If He went somewhere wouldn’t we expect to follow Him there also?
The “somewhere’s” in the Bible are or were actual places, yet the meanings behind the places is so ordained by God’s Spirit as one takes the journey of the Christian walk.
Ever heard of Pilgrim’s Progress? If so, this is what I mean. Every place in scripture has a Divine meaning. Things do not happen in Christ just because. The steps of righteous men are ordered by the Lord, whether the men realize it or not.
“Galilee” has a meaning. Just as every other word and title and name on earth do. The names were given through Adam (man) and divinely inspired by God.
Jesus left Judea and returned to Galilee. “Judea” is where “He shall be praised”. “Galilee” is “the circuit or circle” or “rolling away”.
Another place where “rolling away” was mentioned, was in the OT, it was the place of circumcision in Joshua 5. The word used there was “Gilgal”. There is another word in the NT of a place Jesus had to go on to, if He so chose the will of His Father, following all the way through the righteous pathway of purpose. This place was called “Golgotha”. The root word for Gilgal and Golgotha is found in “Galilee” or “rolling away”. It is the place of the circumcision of flesh, rolling away of me, to reveal Him.
If Jesus was led there, shall we not also go? The answer is, yes.
That is/was the goal for each and every human alive on earth, to be a demonstration of Him. There’s no way anyone can be that without a rolling away of who I am, as I am. In order to demonstrate Him, I must be “rolled away”. My self life and opinions must be changed, altered, turned around (as in turn from going in one direction and begin to head in another, making a circle, repenting for going the wrong way, the way of - “its so much about me”.)
“He shall be praised”, when I am changed into His image and likeness. “He shall be praised” when I move out and He moves in. The only way that can happen is through a cutting away, a severing of who I naturally am.
On the way to the rolling away, the grace of God leads us here and there and everywhere to prepare us, show us how, where, when, etc.
On His way to Galilee, He stopped off in Samaria. Samaria means, “stay on watch”, as in “guard and protect, keep, retain, observe, treasure up in the memory, keep covenant and commands to fulfill the vow of, to preserve and reserve, paying heed to”.
He had to go there before He’d die to Himself. So do we. We can’t skip through steps on this journey. How much have we laid the words of truth up? How much of a treasure are they to us? Have we even come to that point in our walk, that we’d be willing to lay our lives down for them?
The will is all powerful in the here and now. It is powerful enough to send people to heaven or hell. Are we wiling to go all the way with the Lord if the way is not our way at all, but it is only His way?
That question must be asked us, or we’ll never get to Gilgal or Galilee or Golgotha, which are all the same place, the place of death, death on a tree, death to self life, the death to the life of me.
He came to Sychar in Samaria. It means, “drunken, intoxicated”. When one is intoxicated, even their very personality is changed, altered. They are different. If they were shy, they become bold. If sad, they can become very happy, if quiet, they may get loud, if intimidated, they become outward; they are altered or changed. This is God’s plan, to alter our person-alities.
He asked a woman, “Can I have a drink (from you)?”
Let’s bring “the woman” in as a symbolism of the church body of believers in the earth.
“Hey, church member, faithful loyal one? Can I drink enough from you to altar me?”
Can the Lord who is thirsty for His will to be done, come to your life and find enough water to satisfy His thirst?
That’s what He was looking for. That’s what He is looking for. We know how much He satisfies us. Time now ask, “Have I satisfied Him lately?” How much and how often do I ask what He’d like to drink, and am I so full of Him that I have more than enough to satisfy Him?
The only way to have anything worth giving Him, would be to be full of Him. Full of His will and desire, full of His Spirit. We have nothing worth feeding Him otherwise. Nothing.
He’s hungry for those who are wiling to go to these places and do His will, by His Spirit, not on their own merits or strength, but those who yield the controls to His spirit.
She had an idea of who God was, but was meeting Him in person for the first time ever. It made her think of worship. What is worship? The giving up of one’s life; that is worship, and that can be done at all times everywhere that there are those who will to do it.
Those who are willing to do it all His way; in that is worship. “Not my way, Lord, Yours, be done!” “How do You want me to do this? I am willing to do it Your way.” That’s Gilgal. That removes the reproach, fills the breeches.
Jesus says to those called disciples, I have food you know nothing about (yet). What was that food? “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. Does yours come from that place as His did? Put yourself in His-story today. Ask the most important questions ever. Those who want to do His will, will reap where others who were just working it out, planted.
The point of all of this is love. Loving God enough to change. Change enough that we’d truly be a witness to win people over to Him. They see and hear you, a changed yielded life, but your life leads them to know Him personally, that they too may be changed in order to effectively do His will.
Jesus did go on to the “rolling away” place. We are to go there too. He went to Cana inside of Galilee. Cana means “reeds”, plants that grow in water. It’s a place where growth occurs. True spiritual growth occurs in water. Water represents the Spirit. If we see growth without the Spirit, it may well be we are strong and knowledgeable, but not necessarily “led”.
Notice even miracles are not necessarily worked out how we’d think they’d be done. What is our walk in Christ based on? Seeing to believe, or believing to see? It is the element faith that pleases God. Faith.