Old Jerry

The reason that the Pharisees were so upset at the man who was healed on the Sabbath is because he was carrying his mat which they considered work. They were also upset that Jesus because he healed on the Sabbath. If you know what the rules are and you are following them then you can judge others that aren’t following the rules and know that you are better than they are. Yes, I have caught myself do that very thing. I think that the reason that churches split is because we aren’t satisfied about the way that things are going because that isn’t the “way we do things here”. I think the sin of the Pharisees here is pride.

Jesus asked the invalid if he wanted to get well because he wanted to make sure that this is what he wanted. Sometimes people complain about things that they don’t want fix they just want to complain. I think that is true that we should make assumptions but ask them what they want us to pray for because we think because that is what we would want to for isn’t what they want.

I would describe the invalid’s character as a complainer, unrepentant, and not thankful. I don’t know about his faith. He didn’t seem to respond to Jesus when he rebuked him. The healing was all grace of the part of God. It doesn’t seem like the man wanted anything to do with God except to heal him. When grace if offer to us we think that we are losing control and don’t want anything to do with it. We don’t ever think that gifts are really free and there for we have to work for them. That is why it is that we resist God’s grace.

I have read of miracles accompanying a great harvest of new believers on the mission field especially in Africa and China. I think that miracles have in evangelism today as in Jesus day to bring people to Jesus. It gets their attention. I think that the people being disciplined because of a miracle and all others all need the same dicipling.

The healing of the boy caused the royal official’s household to believe. But not only that but the way that he was healed and the time that it was done. The royal official had faith before he went to see Jesus but it was only in the miracles that he did. He was able to nurture beyond mere “miracles faith” because Jesus did it at a distance and the boy was healed.

We learn that the royal official’s faith was one that believed in Jesus. When he said that his son was healed the official believed him and left. He had faith that Jesus could heal his servant’s son because he had heard about the miracles that Jesus had performed.

I think that if you can see what he can do, then I think that you will believe in what they are saying. If the only thing that you see is miracles then you might think that he is a magician and that is that he can do. The reason that Jesus rebuke the Galileans is because they had already seen what he could do miracles but they still didn’t believe in his message.

I think that Jesus stayed two days in Samaria because he saw that the field was ripe and that it needed to be cultivated. He instructed his disciples not to preach in Samaritan villages because he knew that they weren’t ready to listen to the gospel. The meaning that Jesus is the Savior of the whole world is that he didn’t come just to save just one religious group of people, he came to save the whole world. The implication is that he is there for us all the time no matter who I am. So we should reach out to all people.

When the crop is harvested and we Christians are at the final harvest, we will be able to be with Jesus but we will also be with those who help to salvation.

The reason that the harvest ripened so rapidly in Sychar is because the woman at the well shared her testimony. It seems like it is pretty unlikely that the testimony of one discredited woman would make that much difference. God could do the same thing with my testimony and might have done that I just don’t know. It is necessary to “open our eyes” to see the potential spiritual harvest because God can guide us to the ones that will probably accept it.

I think that when Jesus uses the word “food” he is saying that there are a lot of people out there that need to be forgiven and come and see the Lord. His passion was to save the people and He was going to do it. My passion is to save people to bring them to Jesus and for a long time I was teaching them about Jesus.

“God in spirit” means that He is omnipresent and that He is always there to help us. To worship in spirit and in truth means that we are really focused on God and we are just going through the motions. My problem is it feels like I go through the motions most the time. My mind wanders when I am worshiping God. The only time it doesn’t is when I sing praises to Him.

Once the woman recognized that Jesus was the Messiah she thought it was a good idea to find out where they should be worshipping. I don’t know why people try to generate religious controversies with us. Maybe it’s like that woman, we want to be sure that we are worshipping correctly. So we think that we know best and want everybody to worship the way that we do.

It gave her the understanding that Jesus was the Messiah. It turned her around and she acknowledged him as the Messiah. These gifts of the Spirit can work today to bring people to faith if we just go out and witness to them.

The gift of God and the “living water” is referring to our soul. Receiving this gift results in a whole being filled in us that was left empty. I believe that the gift is received when we get “baptized with the Spirit”.

Yes, I have been spiritually thirsty. I have to go to the well (Bible) daily. The woman does seem like she is spiritually thirsty but doesn’t realize it. Jesus is the one that made her deep thirst to surface. If we witness then a person that person that we are witnessing to might figure out that they too needs to go to the well.

I think that Jesus went against social norms to communicate with the woman because he had a divine appointment. I think that we hesitate to go against social norms because we don’t want to be an outsider. We want to be accepted by everybody. That is quite a balancing act to obey God and to live peaceably in our culture. But all I can say that is that we need to obey God and hope for the best for our culture.

I believe in God’s love and I also believe in his wrath. We have an all loving God but we also have a righteous God and He doesn’t just let anyone into heaven. He only lets those who believe in Jesus others will suffer his wrath. God justifies our salvation because He give his only begotten God for our sins.

We must think more of Christ and less of ourselves. We must be thinking is this what Christ wanted me to do or is that something that is satisfying me. Will this bring glory to Christ or will just reflect on me.

John the Baptist is the one that is clearing the way for Jesus and therefore whenever Jesus has success then John is proud of him. He knows that he has helped Him. I do find joy is the success of others in their ministry. I know at that times I have been able to help them and always find fulfillment in what they do. I think that sometimes pastors compete with others is because they don’t seem secure in what they are doing and they think that there success is built on the size of their congregation.

I do not resent “larger churches” that attract people from my church. They must not have been getting spiritual things that they needed from our church and moved on to find what they are looking for. This kind of possessiveness prevents people from growing. We stay in the church because we are getting are spiritual needs and we can’t see why others aren’t getting what they need. So of course we don’t see why they are moving on.

The thing that was important of Jesus spending time with disciples was they got to know him and they were able to learn about what Jesus was trying to teach us. His strategy was to spent time with the disciples. Jesus uses us to make disciples today. I don’t spend much time with the disciple. I manage to only spend about an hour a week with them.

This verse is famous because it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling about our God. It teaches us that God really does love us because he sacrificed His Son for us. It teaches us that we have to have faith in his Son to have eternal life. Our destiny is sure if we believe in his Son.

I think that the meaning of “born of water and Spirit” means that we have to turn our lives around and follow Jesus. We need to repent of our sins. When we are baptized we are baptized with water into the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Other than this I have no idea what it means. I am just going to let it be one of those things that I don’t understand.

You have to be born anew in order to enter the Kingdom because the Kingdom is for those that have been born of the spirit. I think that any of those translations are good because we have to repent of our sins which means be have to be born anew. In order to be born anew it has to come from above. We have to change our thinking therefore we have to be born again. To me they are saying about the same thing.