Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe shares how God wants to place a wellspring of living water in you that creates rivers of blessings for other people. Through the highs and lows we all endure, the resilient love of God remains, encouraging us and speaking tenderly to us through the weight of worldly disappointment.

This month, we want to encourage you with a special resource from Jill Briscoe that beautifully captures the heart of what it means to walk with God every day. It's her poetry book, Barefoot in My Heart. Her words will point you back to the one who satisfies every longing and rekindles your passion for Him even in life's busiest and most difficult seasons.

We'd love to send you a copy of Barefoot in My Heart as our thanks for your gift today to help more people experience life in Christ through the biblical teaching and encouragement of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you give and let Jill's words refresh your heart and remind you of God's faithfulness this Christmas season. Call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill with her message, "Thirsty for Living Water."

Jill Briscoe: We're going to be talking about how to allow God to flow out of our lives in rivers of blessing to people. Jesus said, "I want to put a well in you, a spring of living water, so that everywhere you go, people are refreshed." People often ask me, "Jill, what is your favorite verse? What's your life verse?" And that's very difficult to answer. I would say usually, probably Isaiah 58.

Isaiah 58:11 says this: "You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." And that's been my heart's desire, that my job is to be well-watered with the water of life, and then the spring of waters that never fail will flow out of my life wherever I go in the world. And that is for everybody. It's for you, me, for grown-ups, for kids, for college kids, for teenagers. That's what Jesus wants for us.

Now, let me set the story for you by telling you the story. The evangelist was tired out. It had been a long, hot, dusty walk—not as long as it might have been if he'd gone around instead of through Samaria. It had been an executive decision by the evangelist, and the evangelist, of course, is Jesus, Jesus Christ, the great evangelist who's come from heaven to win a lost world.

His team, the disciples, had arrived at the well outside Sychar just before lunch. "Great," grumbled Peter. "Now we're going to have to buy lunch from the Samaritans." Grim-faced, they left the evangelist sitting on the ancient well that Jacob had dug for their forefathers and they set off down the hill to shop. It was hot, hot, hot. And he was tired, tired, tired. He was thirsty, which was not a little frustrating, sitting on a well without a bucket.

Of course, he who made the rivers and all the lakes could at this moment of man-time have attended to his own very real need. But though he had the power, he didn't have the permission, for his Heavenly Father had decided that he needed to endure a period of privation for the good of the kingdom. He was driven by a compulsion because he had to meet somebody very, very important that day at that well.

So the evangelist battered away the flies that buzzed around his face and he looked towards Sychar. The lone figure of a woman, balancing a water utensil gracefully on her head, was making the long climb up the hill towards him. And suddenly he who came to seek and to save that which was lost knew without a shadow of a doubt why he'd had such a driving necessity to come through Samaria. "She's coming home, Father," he said. "She's coming home."

And so begins the story of the woman at the well. And we read in the Scriptures that when this Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said, "Will you give me a drink?" And the Samaritan woman said to him, "You're a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan woman." Two strikes against her. She was a Samaritan and she was a woman in that day and age. "You know the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans."

Or another translation: "You know that the Samaritans and the Jews do not put their lips to the same cup. We don't drink out of the same utensils because you, the Jews, think we, the Samaritans, are dirty. How can you be asking for a drink out of my bucket?" And Jesus said, "Ah, if you knew, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, 'Give me to drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water, so you never need to come back to this well to drink again." "Sir," she said, "give me this water so that I never come back to drink."

Now, the Bible talks a lot about symbolism. It talks about the symbol of water as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit in us that can enable us to be spring-fed, that can be that well of satisfaction for our soul thirst. And the Bible says, "Come, all of you that are thirsty, come and drink." And there are people that are thirsty all around us. Maybe you're thirsty. You've come here today and you say, "There's something wrong. Everything in my life seems to be right. Why do I feel as though there's something wrong?"

And what's wrong is there is a soul thirst that's never been satisfied. Listen to Jeremiah 2:13. "My people," says God, "have forsaken the spring of living waters and they've dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." And that's what maybe you've done. You've dug your own cistern. You're trying to drink at the well of wellness. You're into the fitness thing, and yet you're still thirsty.

Or maybe you're drinking at the well of sports, and you've even won the biggest race and you've got the best place on the team, but you're still thirsty. Or maybe you're drinking at the well of success, but there doesn't seem to be success enough to quench your thirst, and it just won't quit. And some of you, like the woman of Samaria, are drinking at the well of your relationships. Some of you are saying, "If I only got married to the perfect man, if I could only find the perfect woman."

Some of you teenagers are saying, "If I could just find a neat boyfriend, then I'd be happy." But I'm not happy when I have found a neat boyfriend, and I am married to a good man or a good woman. There's something wrong, and I don't know what it is. But you see, no man can ever love you enough, no woman can ever love you enough, no child can ever need you enough, no friend can ever friend you enough, no job can ever satisfy you enough. Only Jesus. And Jesus said, "If only you knew that, that'd make you happy."

Sitting on a plane next to a self-made man who worshiped his creator, if you think about that, he said to me, "I don't need your Christ. I don't need your God. I have a great family. My kids are going to Harvard and all these wonderful schools. I have two or three houses, I have boats, I've got vacations. We've got a house in Switzerland. I'm at the top of my career. What do I need God for?" And I said, "Wouldn't you like that to be better?" He said, "My life couldn't be better."

I said, "Oh, you don't know that. You think it couldn't be better, but I'm telling you it could be better." He said, "How?" I said, "Because you haven't got a spiritual dimension to your life. And Jesus Christ said, 'I've come that man might have life and have it better.' Wouldn't you like it to be better? A man like you would always like it to be better." And he said, "Well, what can I say to that?" I said, "Nothing."

Jesus said, "I need to give you something so it'll be better." So whether you're succeeding or whether you're at the top or whether you're at the bottom like this woman was, it doesn't really matter. Are you thirsty? Are you thirsty? Well, which well are you drinking from? Now, then, the Christ of God looks at the disciples and thinks, "They've really lost this one. They've missed it."

They've gone all the way down there, they've got bread, they're bringing me lunch. They come back to Jesus, and Jesus says, "I've got lunch that you know nothing about." And the disciples say, "Who brought him lunch? Did you bring him lunch? Did you see somebody else bring—we've gone all the way down there, we've brought the lunch back." And Jesus says, "Lift up your eyes off your lunch!" And you know, the disciples represent you and me.

They missed the whole thing. And Jesus's eyes were down in the valley, and out of Sychar came this woman who'd gone back to tell the city about Jesus. And the men, it says, the men, all the men of the city were following her. And I've sat at that well in the Holy Land and I've looked down that place and I've taken myself in my mind's eye back 2,000 years and I know what Jesus saw.

He saw their white robes and he saw them like sheaves winding their way up the hill and he says, "Guys, you say the harvest's not ready yet? Look at the harvest! Get your eyes off your lunch! What's the matter with you? I've got food that you know nothing about!" And when I see the church of Jesus Christ in America and the West today, I hear those words of Jesus, and I include myself in that rebuke.

"What do you know, Jill, of my vision? And what do you know of the passion in your heart for the woman at the well? You know nothing about it. You're worrying about the lunch. You need to get your eyes up and look as I see it and as I'm looking." And then Jesus said two wonderful things: "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work." There were two things that drove Jesus Christ: the will of God and the work of God.

Now, what drives your life? What drives your life? My meat is to do the will of God. My food is to do the will of God. "How do I find the will of God?" you say. You know, the question I was asked more than any other question in Korea from these kids—these marvelous, marvelous young people, and the church in Korea is in good hands for the next generation. We are going to be receiving in the world many of those 6,000 kids who said, "Anywhere, anytime, anyplace, show me how."

But the question I got asked day in, day out as those kids just mobbed me: "Tell me then, how do I know the will of God for me? Where does he want me to go? I want to know." Well, let me tell you what I told them. The will of God is revealed in the Word of God for the world of God. That's how you know. How did Jesus know he had to be at Sychar? Because he'd been in his Bible, the Old Testament.

And he'd read Isaiah, and he understood it applied to him. His part applied to him. "I've come to open blind eyes, I've come to get hearts ready to receive God. I've come to put a well of water and life, spiritual life in people." He knew what the will of God was through the Word of God in the world of God. He had his global glasses on in a contemporary context and he understood his contemporary context was made up of Jews, of Syrophoenicians, of Greeks, of Samaritans.

He understood every single piece of his contemporary context and he understood how his gifts and his person in that day, in that age, matched with the will of God for his world of God. You see, this is God's world that broke God's heart. But God wants it back, and he's going to use a woman of Samaria. He's going to use all sorts of nothing sorts of people like you and me because that way he gets all the glory. And that's what we're going to see in this story.

And so I want to talk about three words. I want to talk about getting a vision and I want to talk about passion, compassion and passion. And I want to talk about mission. Which is my Sychar? What does God want me to do and how do I actually get there and make a difference? And how, Lord, how out of my life can come rivers of living water? Well, how do we get spiritual vision? Jesus said, "Open your eyes and look at the fields."

You'll never get a spiritual vision unless you're looking at the Father. What's your prayer life doing, folks? Kids, what's your prayer life doing? When was the last time you didn't want to get up off your knees? Hmm? If you look at the Father, you'll see the fields. You'll see the situation, the challenges as he sees it, and it will break your heart. But you've got to spend time in prayer. And what about the Word of God?

When was the last time you had a meaningful and not a guilty, duty quiet time with God? When was the last time you had a noisy time with God? When was the last time you heard him talking to you? And when was the last time you said, "Lord, I've got to go and do this. I just hate this, but I'll be back as soon as I can"? When was the last time you drew water out of the wells of salvation, as it says in Isaiah, with joy?

There's so little joy in Christian lives today. No wonder nobody wants to come and take a drink. And it's all become service. "Well, I go to church, I have my little job, I do this, I do that." But you don't have a thirst for souls. You have a thirst for service. And I observe, coming back into the West, that everybody in the church of Jesus Christ in this country wants to serve in an advisory capacity.

That's it. And God says, "I want you to have a thirst for people." Do you know that in the Gospels, if you look at every single incident, somebody's worked this out, that Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ spent 50% of all of his time with individuals? 50% with the group and a crowd, and the other 50% with individuals. Now, how much time do you spend with a group and how much time do you spend with individuals?

Who are you trying to work with? Who's the woman at the well in your life at the moment? Did you meet her at the drinking fountain, not the well, at work? Did you see her in the supermarket? Are you playing tennis with her at the club? Who is the woman at the well in your life? Every single one of us should have a woman at the well. "There is something wrong, Lord, what is it?" Well, I know what it is.

Because I've had my heart over this passage of Scripture and I've tried to be honest with God because I'm speaking to myself just as truly as I'm speaking to all of you. It's easy to lose your vision in the doing stuff, lose sight of people. Listen, people are more important than programs. And the more you get involved in the work of the Lord, the more you can lose sight of the work of the Lord of the work. And that's true.

Now, then, look at Jesus. He was tired, he wanted a drink, he needed bread. And yet he said, "I lost my appetite. Guys, get your eyes off your lunch and look down that hill." I don't need to eat. His stomach was tied in a knot seeing what was happening. He was so excited. He said, "My will is to finish the work that God has given me to do." On the cross, he said, "It's finished!" Took him three years to finish the redemption of the world.

And he said, "It is finished," not "I am finished." It is finished. What was it? His work, for he delighted to do the Father's will. "I always please the Father," he said. That's my heart. I want to always please the Father. Father, what do you want me to do so that I can please you? I want to sense your pleasure. What is joy? Joy is not God giving me a nice, happy feeling. Joy is sensing God's pleasure because you've found the will of God revealed in the Word of God for the world of God for your own personal life.

And you're winning it for Jesus Christ. And you sense his pleasure, and that's joy. That's joy. And you'll never know joy until you find the will of God for your life. That's for sure. Now, part of this driving compulsion, part of the passion because vision leads to passion, this comes when you understand lostness. If you do not understand that people are lost without Christ, you will never bother with the woman at the well. You will never go to Sychar.

Whatever your Sychar is. Sychar might be a difficult kid at school that's on your case that you don't like. Sychar might be a parent that you're out of sorts with. Sychar might be a group of people that you're quite honestly intimidated by. I don't know what your Sychar is, but you'll never bother sticking your neck out, you'll never bother getting shot at for Jesus if you don't believe in lostness. If you don't believe that the friends you have and even your enemies can spend eternity without God, if you never get that straight, forget this talk because it won't mean a thing to you.

Lostness is a great leveler. All of us are born lost and so we need to be found. And that's what Jesus came to do, to find us. He said, "Fellows," to the disciples, "we need to be energetically at work for the one who sent me." He's talking about himself here. "Working while the sun shines. When night falls, the work day is over. Working while the sun shines." Boy, that phrase got to me when I found it.

Listen, the sun is shining today. I don't know what the date is, but the sun is shining, and there will come a time when the sun won't shine anymore and Jesus said it'll be night. Night, totally night for people that don't know Christ. And I caught that in the way I like to do. "While it's day, I must be working, for the night is coming on. While it's day, I must be telling of the cross of his dear Son. While it's day, you'll find me finishing my Father's work for me. While it's day, you'll find me living with a sense of urgency."

"For when night comes, no one can work the fields or harvest grain save He who harvests for the place where fear and terror reign. He'll gather those we loved to Him, and we will hear them cry: 'You didn't talk of Jesus when the sun was in the sky.' When midnight reigns for sheaves of grain who could have had a chance to cast on Him the crucified one helpless saving glance. When death holds tight, when day is night, what will we hear them say?"

I don't want anybody I know and I love or even like to say, "You didn't talk of Jesus when the sun was in the sky." Jesus said, "I've got to be working, there's a sense of urgency. Get your eyes off your lunch! What are you doing?" How's your vision? How's your passion? Some of us just don't like people. That's our problem. I had somebody in ministry say to me, "You know something? Don't like people. I think I'm allergic to them."

I'll tell you what'll do it. When God puts his passion for people in your heart. Maybe you've got a prejudice problem. That's why you don't like Samaritans. Maybe you've got a people problem. You just don't like people. What you need to do is say, "God, break my heart for the things that break the heart of God."