This blog is a supplement to today’s podcast: But First, How do You View God?
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This is our 2nd podcast in our fall season titled: How to Thrive in God’s Abundance.
What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
A.W. Tozer
Who is God?
I loved me some goofy Lucy growing up. I watched those black and white reruns until I had memorized them. One popular quote Lucille Ball is known for (but that I don’t remember from the show) is, “Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
I only know this quote because I purchased a 90-day planner, years back. Inside, it’s so filled with self-love quotes—one being the one above—that it’s nauseating me more than keeping me organized. I’ve taken the liberty of changing several of the quotes to truths. No disrespect to Lucille, but her quote now reads: “Love the Lord your God first and everything else falls into line. You really must love God to live a life with eternal value.”
So, there. Take that Satan! My world is right again. I’ve learned deceit can get you when you allow the enemy opportunity.
In this week’s podcast, I point out a quote by A.W. Tozer, “What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
God is Love:
How about some truth? God created love. God is love. And apart from Him we will never know selfless, fulfilling, abundant, eternal love.
God is love. Hallelujah!
When God commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind (in Matthew 22:37), He doesn’t expect us to muster up that kind of love on our own. We can’t. It’s impossible since He creates it. Instead, He gives us a helpmate, a spiritual guide, the Holy Spirit, but we’ll never get there unless we are intentional about spending time with the Father. We must build our relationship with Him. We can say we love our husbands or our children, but if we never spend time getting to know who they are at their core, do we really love them? Or is it just surface?
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.” I John 4:7-9 (ESV)
The Woman.. The Water… The Well:
There was a woman in the Bible who longed for true love. The Samaritan woman found Jesus at the well, getting water at the hottest hour—the time of day she safely escaped the scornful stares of other women. Christ asked her for some water. Her eyes widened and she pointed out that he was a Jew, and she was a Samaritan. “(For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans)” John 4:9b (ESV)
“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”’ John 4:10 (ESV)
The woman pointed out that Jesus had no vessel with which to draw the water to give her; but He did. Jesus looked at her… this Samaritan woman who was easy as a Sunday morning (so to speak) would make a perfect vessel. Jesus knew she’d been sipping from muddy waters, and while she thought it was all she needed, it left her with a dehydrated soul and a heart filled with pain, shame, and want.
She’d been married five times and was now living with a man who wasn’t her husband, as Jesus pointed out. She searched for love in all the wrong places. I imagine when her latest conquest stopped making her happy, she began lingering outside her door sending out her wandering eyes for the next. It probably didn’t take long to find the next tall, cold, glass of grit, and she packed her things and made the walk of shame into his abode.
Are We Any Better?
We do that too…fill ourselves with all the muddy waters of this world to alleviate having to think about the pain or heartaches we’ve experienced. We fill that place inside with wealth, material possessions, striving, social media, addictions, people…anything that will distract or self-medicate to keep us from having to feel it again. Meanwhile, our God who holds the Living Water that heals and hydrates, stands by waiting to fill us up. Are we thirsty enough or have we become too satisfied with mud?
What kind of life would we live if we truly understood the compacity in which God loves us? Would we still be riddled with insecurity? Pain? Doubts or fears? Guilt and Shame? Hate and Unforgiveness? His Living Water fills every crack and crevice, every deficit in our being. How do we know God still loves us even when we’ve been that woman at the well?
God in Flesh Died For Us:
We know because of Jesus. When Christ hung on the cross, love poured out of Him towards the men who beat him, mocked him, pushed a crown of thorns into his scalp, spit on Him, and nailed Him to a cross. He still loved them. We are called to love like that.
“And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”’ Luke 23:34 (ESV) He prayed on their behalf in His suffering. He forgave the thief nailed to the cross next to Him. No matter who we’ve been, what we’ve done, or what we’ve filled ourselves with, Abba Father still loves.
That Samaritan woman left her water vessel right there by the well. She accepted the truth of who God is through Jesus and ran to the village to pour out onto others what Jesus had poured into her. Are we willing to leave behind those things that don’t truly satisfy a dehydrated soul? Are we willing to get to know our Father in an authentic relationship by meditating on His Word, praying, and listening? If you have a skewed view of who God is, spend time with Him today. One cannot thrive without being filled with the Living Water.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” I John 4:11(ESV)
Tammy Carter Adams is the founder of The Hallelujah House and co-host of The Hallelujah House podcast. Tammy resides in Central Florida with her husband and four children. When she’s not creating content, Tammy enjoys writing, painting, and being outdoors.
Photo Credit: Istock: Drazen Zigic/ ID1735492571
