“FATHER IS SEEKING SUCH PEOPLE!”

John 4:16-26                                         (ESV)

“16 JESUS said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here."

17 The woman answered HIM, "I have no husband." JESUS said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband';

18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true."

19 The woman said to HIM, "Sir, I PERCEIVE that YOU are a prophet.

20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."

21 JESUS said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the FATHER in spirit and truth, for the “FATHER IS SEEKING SUCH PEOPLE” to worship HIM.

24 GOD is spirit, and those who worship HIM must worship in spirit and truth."

25 The woman said to HIM, "I know that Messiah is coming (HE WHO is called CHRIST). When HE comes, HE will tell us all things."

26 JESUS said to her, "I WHO speak to you am HE."”

A friend was speaking about an illness that they had and said to another friend that if there wasn’t such a big deal made over the illness that they wouldn’t have thought anything about it, that the illness was just part of getting older.  This statement got me to thinking, do we make as big of a deal about our own sin as we do about other people’s sin?  Or do we just think that our sin is just part of being a normal human, an imperfect person in an imperfect world?  

The woman at the well in the passage of Scripture above was imperfect.  According to JESUS, she already had five husbands and the one she was currently with wasn’t even married to her!  She was a LOT worse than me, for I have only been married to one woman in my life.  But how I perceive (or view) sin may not be as CRITICAL when the sin is mine as when it is someone else’s?  The word “perceive” is defined as “to recognize, discern, envision, or understand”.  Could it be that the reality is that we attempt to ignore is that OUR SIN while the sins of others we push them to the front of our memory?  

The “FATHER IS SEEKING SUCH PEOPLE” who will worship HIM, not identify the sins of other people.  Our inability to live our lives HOLY and acceptable to GOD is beyond our capabilities, for we are born into sin!  The ONLY HOPE available for mankind is to be BORN AGAIN by the SPIRIT OF GOD, allowing the sacrifice of JESUS CHRIST to be IMPUTED for our transgressions.  

Just like my friend said that their illness might have been ignored had there not been such an uproar about it, OUR SIN needs to have the same uproar!  But mainly, the “FATHER IS SEEKING SUCH PEOPLE” who will PERCEIVE and recognize that JESUS paid their sin debt that we had and IMPUTED HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS into our accounts so we could live forever with HIM!  No, I am not perfect, I have ugly sin that I don’t like talking about!  But “THE FATHER IS SEEKING SUCH PEOPLE” who will recognize that JESUS CHRIST is the ONLY WAY to worship GOD!