A COMING COUNSELOR

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor.

Isaiah 9:6

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In Old Testament times, God sent word to His people through the prophets about Son who would be born and given to save and deliver them, a King defined by His wisdom, justice, and righteousness (Jeremiah 23:5). This coming Messiah (or Christ) would be a Light that would bring the people out of darkness (Isaiah 9:2) and He would “stand as a banner for the peoples” as all nations rallied to Him (Isaiah 7:14). All government would be on His shoulders and that governance would be grounded in a greatness and peace that would endure forever (Isaiah 9:7).

This is what we have learned so far about the run up to Jesus’ coming. It’s clear that He didn’t come by surprise but rather to fulfill what God, His Father, had promised.

When we look at the scriptures in whole and what they tell us about Jesus, the Savior of the world and Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29), we find approximately 200 different names He was known by, names that when taken in whole define His divine identity and character. Over the next four messages, we will look at a quartet of these names grouped together within the sixth verse of Isaiah 9, a verse that is usually very familiar to most Christians. Here’s what God tells His people about His coming Son:

For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Today, we look at Jesus as our Wonderful Counselor and there isn’t a single human who has lived or is living today that doesn’t need counsel. No one knows everything in regard to how to handle every single situation that life brings to us. We all need guidance and help.

As we look at the documented life of Jesus in the Gospels, we find Him fulfilling this title, Wonderful Counselor, over and over and over again. One of those times is found in the Book of John as Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.

Now He had to go through Samaria. So He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as He was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give Me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe Me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the One speaking to you—I am He.” John 4:4-26

Here we find Jesus and the Samaritan woman meeting in Sychar, a town in Samaria where the well of Jacob was located, a well that had been providing life sustaining water to the community from the time it was dug. For at least the woman, the encounter felt a bit awkward and uncomfortable because of the cultural schism that existed between the Jews and Samaritans.

To find the genesis of this schism, you would have to go back in Old Testament history when the northern kingdom of Israel was attacked and devastated by the marauding, conquering Assyrians. There was a remnant of Israelites who survived the onslaught and many intermarried with the Assyrians, their offspring forming a new population that would be known as the Samaritans. The Jews viewed them as half-breeds and there was a deep resentment and hatred between the two people groups.

This is why we find the Samaritan woman surprised when Jesus asks her for a drink. It would not have been customary for a Jew to want to even be in company with a Samaritan, let alone one that was a woman, but Jesus’ purpose at the well went far beyond any man-made biases. He was living up to His role as a Wonderful Counselor.

In their exchange about physical water, we find Jesus skillfully pivot the talk about salvation as He speaks about a “living water” that would remove thirsting from anyone who receives it, water that would well up from the inside “to eternal life”. In other words, Jesus was talking about the woman’s need for salvation but she wasn’t quite grasping the counseling she was receiving.

We know this because the Samaritan woman continues to see the “living water” Jesus discussed as some super water that would eternally satisfy a person’s physical need for drink.

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

It’s at that moment that Jesus changes the conversation and gets very personal with the woman, asking her to call her husband and then return. Note that the woman still believes Jesus is just an ordinary Jew. She had no clue about His holy nature and supernatural abilities when she tells Him she had no husband and I can’t imagine the shock and surprise within her heart and soul when she realized how much Jesus knew about her.

For we find Him replying:

“You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

The Samaritan woman before Jesus had experienced brokenness in her life many times over. Broken relationship after broken relationship had to have left her feeling wondering whether she could ever find a love that wouldn’t leave. She would only be married to find herself single again, thirsting for someone else to spend life with while hoping they wouldn’t leave like the one before. Further, her sense of self worth and shame would have grown with each failed marriage and yet here she was before Jesus, living with a man out of wedlock.

And now she knew that He could peer deep into her heart, mind, and soul. She might have been able to hide her past experiences and feelings from others but not from the Jewish man she was with at the well, a man she still didn’t quite understand outside of knowing He was a special messenger from God. Look at her words here:

“Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

There is no question that the woman sees Jesus as a man sent from God to counsel her. We sense a guilt that she hasn’t worshiped the same God of her ancestors, the God who sent Him, because she believed that the only appropriate, designated place to worship was at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus assures her that this isn’t a barrier to finding her salvation as He advises:

“Woman, believe Me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Note here that Jesus brings wonderful counsel and good news to the Samaritan woman, telling her that a new time had come, a time when it wouldn’t matter where a person worshiped God as long as they worshiped Him “in Spirit and in truth”. This privilege to worship God anywhere at any time wasn’t restricted to just the Jews, although “salvation was from the Jews”. Those who would be considered “true worshipers”, those who placed their belief in Jesus as Savior and gained the “living water” that would well up into eternal life, could come from any nation or tribe, Jew or Gentile.

It was at this point that the Samaritan woman shared her belief in the coming Messiah, a belief and hope Jesus would have also already known before He engaged with her in conversation. She knew that when the Messiah came, He would be able to “explain everything to us”, a statement that meant she trusted in the Messiah having the ability to dispel confusion and bring understanding.

Jesus, the Wonderful Counselor, had skillfully processed the woman’s life struggles and deepest spiritual yearnings through a special, divine conversation and we find Him concluding the session with the declaration that He was indeed the One she had been waiting and longing for. The encounter changed her forever as she believed in Jesus and gained her “living water” and an assurance of eternal life.  

Now, this story would have been fantastic in its own right if it had just stopped there but there was still more to come. For the Samaritan woman ran into her town and started to share her testimony with others, the sheer power of which led to others to believe without ever having encountered Jesus in person themselves. Some of the others in town went to Jesus and invited Him to stay with them, which the scriptures tell us He did for two days. During that time, “many more became believers” because of “His words” (John 4:39-41) which continued to bring living water to all who would hear. Those who found salvation proclaimed to the Samaritan woman:

“We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” John 4:42

Since those days in Sychar, millions upon millions of people have read the scriptures and had their own personal encounters with Jesus, encountering Him at the well of life as their own personal Wonderful Counselor while receiving His living water that has quenched their spiritual thirst for all eternity, a living water that welled up from their soul to eternal life.

My prayer today is that you, like the Samaritan woman, have had the blessing of meeting Jesus wherever you were or are in life, ready to gladfully receive His wisdom and guidance. For in Him, we know we will always do what is right and righteous when we are obedient to His wonderful counsel.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.