Words of Jesus Podcast - "Who is right?" Big question.

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

Subscribe, review, and share this podcast to keep diversity on the web. Jesus went to great lengths to remove barriers. The people of the Scripture had the same concerns we hear today. Who has the authority? Rather than build a relationship with mankind which requires "an expert" to establish protocol, to make hierarchies, to require a priest; Jesus came to implement one-on-one relationships. Jesus operated outside the barriers of prejudice, of tradition and of location. "Worship in Spirit and Truth." "Pray in your closet." "Be watered and fed on the inside." "How can these things be?" Jesus used physical principles to convey spiritual truths. He revealed mysteries (not based on race or gender) to those who were willing to look past the obvious and to make changes in their lives. "One is your teacher, even Christ." There are prerequisites. Keep the commandments. Never violate your conscience. And take time every day to hear the voice of God. The kingdom of God is within us! ***Chapter 8 (Part 1)RETURNING to Galilee after a trip to Judea, Jesus came, about noon, to the outskirts of the city of  Sychar in Samaria near Jacob’s well, situated on the parcel of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. To her Jesus said: “Give me to drink.” The woman responded: “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus replied: “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, ‘Give me to drink,’ thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” Not understanding, the woman replied: “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?” Jesus answered: “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”  The woman said:  “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.” Jesus saith unto her, “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.” The woman answered saying: “I have no husband.”  Jesus said: “Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” The astonished woman replied: “I perceive that thou art a prophet.  Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus replied: “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.  Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”  Marveling at his words, the woman said: “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.” Jesus replied: “I that speak unto thee am he.” The disciples returned and marvelled that Jesus was talking with the woman: yet no man questioned him as to his reason. The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and said to the men: “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” The men left the city and approached Jesus as his disciples were asking him to...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris. Hello friends and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris, your host, taking you through some of the red ink here and just getting it all over our feet. Maybe it'll soak up into our bloodstream. Paul said that I'd love for you to all have the same mind. And in another place he said, we all need the mind of Christ.

And you know, I understood that from that and from my own experience, there's only one way to have the mind of Christ. And that's just to think red ink. You've got to think the way Jesus thought. It could be a wonderful thing. Are you a return watcher? If you've been enjoying this series,

can I encourage you to call the station that's providing this show and tell them how much you appreciate this? I'm going to tell you, in the age that we live in, we have, there are what I call Christian gatekeepers out there that, you know, if you don't toe the line, you don't fill in all the check boxes of things that you believe or whatever it is,

you can't buy broadcasting no matter what it costs. And frankly, it just takes a guy that's secure in what he believes. And I'm afraid that a lot of people in religious broadcasting just don't have that feeling of security. They're just scared to death of false prophets. You know it's something that I think is prevalent today. And one of the ways that people are kept in check,

kept in tow, they're kept inside their little fences, is the constant barrage of warnings about false prophets. Do you know what false prophets you have to fear? Absolutely none of them. They're after people that don't have a relationship with God. They're trying to seize and keep their very own. They're trying to pull people away from truth. Not people who

have already established a relationship with God. Speak to them every day. You speak to God every day and you're worried that some false prophet is going to say something? That it's going to somehow magically turn you into a demon or something overnight? Boy, this is what we're told in a lot of cases. It doesn't matter. It doesn't, it just doesn't matter that much to somebody who has a relationship to God. We need not fear

people and their opinions. I listen to preachers all the time. I don't agree with their doctrinal stand on a lot of things, but it doesn't mean that the Lord hasn't said something or spoken to them or they've to do something or have some kind of good to offer, that kind of thing. I've got my lines of demarcation that I choose not to

frequent some preachers that obviously are, they're not spiritual men because they can't be. The scriptures talk about how to be led of the Spirit of God and it's got certain criteria that you'd have to circumnavigate to say you're led of the Spirit of God. So there's some men that I won't listen to, but not anybody that somebody else has called a false prophet. I don't care what somebody else thinks.

And you know, you just need to have that kind of confidence. The inundation that we've suffered with the fear of false prophets has brought about in people a feeling of inadequacy when it comes to being able to judge for themselves. And you know, Jesus asked a question one time. You'll hear me refer to a lot of questions of Jesus. The book was, the questions of

Jesus that I wrote so many years ago now was four years in the making. It was a huge part of my life. And so the questions are just, you know, there's just a list of them in my head. And I keep hearing the Lord ask these questions. I'm sitting here thinking red ink. I know you've got to appreciate that. So I'm sitting here thinking red ink and I'm thinking, I hear the Lord saying, why judge ye not of yourselves what is right? Why judge ye not of yourselves what is right?

Why judge ye not of yourselves what is right? And I got to ask you, friend, I mean, if you do, call up the preacher and call up the pastor or the deacon or the trusted friend or the mama or the daddy, why is it that you don't decide for yourself what is right? See, that's what needs to be fixed. Not the impending problem that you're dealing with right now. Let's deal with the problem of why are you asking somebody else how to fix this problem? Why are you doing that? Why don't you trust yourself? You don't have a relationship with God. Get it. Get it, get it, get it. Get in the scriptures and find out how to do it and get it. It's just really that simple. Alright, so we're looking in chapter

8 of our little book called Jesus and the Woman at the Well of Samaria. And this has a lot of writing in it. There's a lot to read in this particular subject but it's all good. This is just really good. So let me get on with some of this reading. Returning to Galilee after a trip to Judea, Jesus came about noon to the outskirts of the city of Sychar in Samaria near

Jacob's well. While his disciples departed to go into the city to buy meat, Jesus sat and rested on Jacob's well, situated on the parcel of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. To her Jesus said, Give me a drink. The woman responded

how is it that thou being a Jew askest drink of me which am a woman of Samaria? The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. I want to stop and explain to you this story just drips with prejudice. Unbelievable prejudice against people.

This is one of the things that the Lord Jesus just hates. The Jews just, man, they just reeked with prejudice. They felt like that they were, well, they're just better than other people. And these other people are just trash. They're extras in the movie. They're just nobodies.

They're nothing. Notice that this woman said, Why do you, a Jew, ask drink of me, listen to this, a woman of Samaria. There's two different things here. This is as bad as it gets. I mean as far as the average Jew is concerned. This is as bad as it gets. You could ask a drink of anybody and dang near anything except

a woman of Samaria and she was shocked about it. How is this even happening? And Jesus said, if you knew the gift of God and who it was that saith unto thee, give me drink, that would have asked of him and he would have given you living water. Now she didn't understand what he was saying. But he was trying to

explain to her that, hey lady, you're not dealing with a Jew. You're dealing with the Son of God. I don't have these problems. These are just, they're not my problems. As a matter of fact, you're going to find me to be so different in so many ways, you will eventually ask me for living water and I'm going to be able to help you

with that. But you need to know that you're kind of judging me because of the way I'm dressed or you can tell I'm a Jew. You know that I'm of Judea. You know who I am. However, you've made a big mistake if you think that I have these kinds of prejudices because I don't. I know that I, as a white male, as a Christian, as a preacher, I mean, there's all kinds of labels stuck to me. And for one of those labels or a combination of many of them or whatever, people have a certain expectation out of me. And I try my best to disappoint them in most cases.

But here you have Jesus saying that, you know, these issues that you're bringing up, they're just not my concern. This does not matter to me. Not in the least. And he said as a matter of fact, if you knew who I was I would give you living water. She didn't understand what he was talking about. And he was I think that she heard him say, even though he did not if you knew who I was I think that she heard him say, even though he did not,

if you knew who I was, I'm worse than you are, and you would ask me for something to drink, and I would have to get you something to drink. I would have to serve you if you knew who I was. Thinking that she's dealing with a person that is kind of a self-abasing, self-deprecating individual. You've been around these kind of people, you know what I mean. You get around some people that frankly that's pretty much how they feel. That if you knew who they were

you wouldn't like them near as much. And I think that that's what she thought he said or what she thought he meant when he said what he said because she goes on to say, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence hast thou this living water? Now, this was when I think that she was expecting him to make good on his promise to get her something to drink.

But she added to the next sentence, where are you going to get this living water? I understand, don't know, didn't live back then, don't speak Hebrew, I don't know. You just hear stuff. I try not to teach anything as doctrine if I just heard it. But I understand that living water in their particular vocabulary, vernacular, was water that was live stream water, river water, water that was in motion.

And she was saying, how are you going to get this living water? You can't even get the water that's in this well. How are you going to get me any living water out here? And then she says, are you greater than our father Jacob which gave us the well? And drank thereof himself and his children and his cattle? There's also a fascination on her part for the history of this well, obviously. This well is almost a sacred place because Jacob

dug this well. Jesus answered, never thirst, but the water I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. She said, sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come here to draw. Jesus said, go and call your husband. Now all of a sudden the conversation's changing. But if we look at this, Jesus makes a statement here that is

well, it's comforting in one way, and it's very troubling in another way. I would say that the troubling, well, first of all, the comforting part. Let me be nice here. And that is that he makes a promise that if you believe on me, who I say I am, I'm going to bring about within yourself a supply of, a well of this living water.

My promise is that if you do partake of this well, if you partake of this water, you will never thirst again. Now, I can't help but believe, and here comes the rough part of this, okay? I can't help but wonder within myself, is this true? Because, boy, if there's a common understanding or a common bit of speech or a common motivation among church people today, it's changing churches.

They do it all the time. So, you guys still going down there at ABC Church? No, we're going over to XYZ now. Well, last time we talked, that ABC Church was the best you'd ever been to. It was okay. It was nice. It was good. Yeah, we liked it. Well, then why'd you move? Well, I don't know. Preacher's sermons are just dry. So the common Christian, the conventional Christian says, oh, well, yeah, okay, I see, I understand. And they kind of let you get away with that. Boy, don't ever say that

to me. I want to know why you think they're dry. Most of all, I want to know why you're so blasted thirsty. Now, if it's true that when, if we, in another place Jesus says, if you eat of this this bread you'll never hunger again. If you drink of this water you'll never thirst again. I want to know if you claim to have that living water within yourself springing up from within your soul. I want to know why you're so

thirsty. If you have indeed eaten that bread which is Jesus Christ came down from heaven and you have ingested and brought into your being and am presently and are presently digesting this bread from heaven, why are you so hungry? Why aren't you going to ABC church anymore? Well, you know, we started going to XYZ and they really feed you over there. Oh, they have big

dinners? No, no. I mean, the preacher, he really feeds. We were just, I don't know, just weren't being fed over there. You've heard this. I hope you haven't said it. But you might have. I don't know. Have we all said that? Perhaps. But isn't it a shame when you have a Lord like we supposedly have saying that if you'll ever eat this bread you'll never hunger again. Why are you going around so hungry? What's the matter with you? You have a tapeworm? What is your problem?

How can you be hungry having within you the bread of life? How can you be thirsty having springing up within your soul the water of life with the promise of Jesus you will never thirst again. How does that happen? You want time to think about this? You don't get any time because you don't need it. You know exactly why this happens.

Because many of us have never eaten that bread. Many of us have never drank of that living water that Jesus offered this woman. You don't even know what a he, you don't know what I'm talking about, you don't have any idea what's being said here. You're just like this woman of Samaria saying, well, you're going to give me something to drink,

you don't even have a bucket. What do you mean? You're going to give me something to drink? You don't even have a bucket. What do you mean? You're going to give me something to drink? You don't even have a bucket. She didn't understand. Just like you don't understand. You don't understand? All you know is you're hungry. You're not being fed over there. So you're going to go over here. Let me prophesy to you. Can I prophesy the future for you? You're not going to like that place either. You're not going to like it.

Because you're carrying your problem over there to it. If they had any sense they'd run you off because they know you're trouble. They would know that you're trouble. What you'll do is you won't allow yourself to be hungry alone. You're going to make sure that other people go hungry too. You're going to make sure they know exactly what your complaint is. You're going to make sure that they know all about some other church, some other place that's

doing wonderful things for Jesus and you're going to end up moving there. How does all this happen? You just refuse to eat the bread. You just refuse to drink the cup that's offered you. Friend, if you don't do that, it's not just hunger and thirst that's going to be your future. It's death. Do you understand that you can't go without eating and drinking?

You know that, right? You can't do that. It just doesn't last. All of a sudden, you're gone. Perhaps this is why people are dying off in the churches, left and right, perhaps. Maybe it is that they've never eaten the bread. Maybe they're starved to death. Maybe they have no sustenance within themselves. Maybe they have no moisture within themselves. Maybe that's why Christianity doesn't work for them. Maybe that's why they're so hungry

and so thirsty. Guarantee you, that's why. The woman at the well was indicative, she was symbolic of many of the people who go to the well every week. They have to go to the well every week because they've dried up. They have to go to the well every week because they're hungry within themselves. They're hungry because they haven't eaten the bread that Jesus offered. Now

if you've got a modicum of intelligence, if you've got a brain in your head, as my backwoods family used to say, you would at this point say, now Don, you might be on to something here. I haven't been satisfied with a church congregation in a long, long time. I haven't really felt like I was being fed anywhere. And when I was being fed, I found out I was being fed a line

or a lie or, you know, something just to make me feel better or make me come back or to make me give money or whatever they were trying to manipulate in my life. And I just don't trust anybody anymore. And I'm just not, I'm not happy in church. You know, it's just, it's not really, I just decided it wasn't for me. But, and frankly, it may not be, I don't know.

But here's some things you're going to have to figure out. One of them is that if it is a matter of you having never eaten that bread, you've got to sit there and wonder if you've got a brain in your head. Where do I get this bread? Where do I get this water? How do I do this? You know that question is actually asked and answered in the scriptures.

When he explains to his disciples that he is the bread of life. I know you think that Moses sent you bread when you're in the wilderness. I know you think that that bread came down from heaven to feed your soul or whatever it was, whatever its intention was. But you need to know that I am that bread. If any man eat this bread he's not going to be out here tomorrow morning looking for more. He's going to be satisfied. He's going to be full.

Well who was it? Was it Peter? I believe it was. He looked at Jesus and said, Lord, evermore give us this bread. It is really going to come down to that for every one of us individually, that we understand the importance and the value and the nutrition and the indispensableness of receiving our sustenance from our God rather than receiving it from our fellow man or from our experiences or from songs or from meetings or from

great little poems or great little, or from great little poems, or great little this or that, or readings, or books, or devotionals, or any of the rest of this stuff. It's going to do us good to realize that there is only one bread that came down from heaven, and that is the Word of God. There is only one way for you to receive what the Bible teaches is your daily bread. Now, it's been several weeks I've been talking about this and trying to develop some kind of an appetite in you for this very thing. And I've said that this way is accomplished with essentially three steps.

And that is, number one, that we would keep his commandments. Look, friend, I'm not saying reinterpret them. I'm not saying change them. I'm not saying change definitions of the word, change the order, change this or change that. Just do what they say to do. That's that. Just do what they say to do. That's all. Just do what they say to do.

Some of them you'll find very, very easy. I'm not tempted every week to kill a man. Perhaps not even every month. But there are many of the commandments that are easy and simple to keep. Some of them are embarrassing not to keep them. What would that be? Well, honoring our Lord God.

I'm ashamed of the fact that idols was so much a part of my life. I was ashamed that whatever celebrations I called Christian were actually just pagan recycled garbage and I was ashamed of it. But man, when I realized I'm violating the commandment of God here, I got rid of it. And so there are some that are that will require you know action and will and determination on your personal it's gonna be easy some of them but nonetheless no matter what they are they are absolutely essential to receiving that bread from heaven, that daily bread. So what were the things? Keep the commandments, never disobey your conscience, and take time every day to hear the voice of God. Hey, I'd like to hear from you. If you're a part of

this series and you've been listening, I'd like to know your opinions about what you hear. If you have questions or whatever. Let your friends know that you're watching. Most of all let the television station know that you're watching. Send me an email Don at ThinkRating.com or you can write to ThinkRating Ministries, PO Box 718 Pinetown, New Mexico, 87827. All right, we'll see you next time. Thanks for being a part of it. Bye-bye. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries.

Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you