LENT • 3

How Is God with Us and What Does it Mean that He is?

SONGS FOR PRAYER

reading for: Tuesday Night, 7 MArch

John 4:5-42

Jesus is God’s Presence with Us in Human Flesh

  • READ

    In John’s Gospel we find that people constantly misunderstand Jesus the first time they meet him. This Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in Sychar is no different. In her conversation with Jesus, she slowly moves from unbelief to belief, from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, from ignorance to knowledge, from misunderstanding to true understanding. Unlike Nicodemus in the previous chapter, she has not seen any of Jesus’ miracles, not has she heard him teaching. The Jesus she first meets at Jacob’s well is only a thirsty Jewish stranger who dares to ask her for a drink. Jesus’ request is very unusual because by speaking to her he crosses important social boundaries of religion, ethnicity, and gender.

    Jesus ‘the Truth’, speaks ‘truth’ to her, even though she is not yet able to recognize it. Often in John’s Gospel, what appears to be true is often only partly true and not the full truth. In the passage, the Samaritan woman thinks Jesus is the requester and fails to understand that it is not he who needs what only she can provide (water from Jacob’s well), but she who needs what only he can give (living water) (v. 7–15). She tells Jesus the half-truth that she has no husband and Jesus reveals the full truth that she has had five husbands and the man currently living with her is not her husband (v. 16–18).

    Realising she has just been exposed, she assumes Jesus is a prophet because he knows the truth about her marital situation, but does not realize that he is much more – one who not only knows the truth about her life but is himself the way, the truth, and the life (v. 19–24). She believes in a coming Messiah but does not realize that in the person of Jesus, the Messiah is standing right in front of her (v. 25–26). Only when the woman leaves her water jar, returns to the city, and invites her neighbours to “come and see” Jesus, does she begin to see a deeper, larger reality beyond the initial appearance. “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (v. 28–29).

    Similarly, the disciples fall into the same pit of ignorance. They encourage Jesus to eat and are puzzled when he tells them he has food they do not know about. So, they ask, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” (v. 31–33). They have no idea what kind of “food” Jesus is talking about. So, just as the Samaritan woman did not begin to understand until she became a witness to Jesus, the disciples do not understand that Jesus is the bread of life (6:35) until they too invite others to “come and see” (1:46).

    Here, we recalled in John chapter 1 that the Word became flesh (1:14), was “in the world … yet the world did not know him” (1:10). The world did not know him because it did not understand what it was seeing. When Jesus says “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” the Jews complain because appearance suggests otherwise. Because they cannot see beyond the apparent, they do not understand. “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” (6:41–42.) They see only what is in the natural, not what the Spirit enabled John the Baptist to see, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

  • REFLECT

    How well do you know Jesus? Are you able to discern His voice from yours? In this Lent season, find a day or a time to fast and pray to hear his voice. Often, what we see in the natural is only the tip of what God is doing in the spiritual. He will reveal his purposes and will to those who persistently seek Him out and make time to hear from Him.  

reading for: Wednesday Night, 8 march

Exodus 17:1-7

Jesus is the Fulfilment of God’s Presence with All Humanity

  • READ

    In this “wilderness-wandering” passage, the Israelites’ thirst and testing makes them question God’s goodness and His Presence. How can they know if God is truly with them? What signs or evidence do they use to discern the presence and provision of God?

    The ungrateful and quarrelsome wilderness generation assumes that when they have what they need and want, then God is with them. But when they are hungry or thirsty, sick, they have been abandoned or betrayed by God. Even worse, is that they wonder if God has ever travelled with them. Their journey towards the Promised Land and freedom might just be a horrible journey of self-deception.

    God is with the people through signs and wonders. In chapter 16, the lack of food prompted their grumbling against Moses and Aaron. God responded by providing manna and quail, instructing Moses and Aaron to assure the people that these things would prove that it was indeed the Lord who had brought them out of Egypt (Exod. 16:6).

    Besides miraculous provisions, leaders like Moses also serve as representatives of God and signs of His presence. Thus, when the thirsty people raise their complaints against Moses, Moses replies (v. 2), “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” Any verbal attack on Moses is an attack on God Himself as well.

    God is with the people through his appointed leaders. This idea of Moses as God’s appointed representative comes with His divine authority. While they are still in Egypt (Chap 7), God tells Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet” (7:1). Moses speaks for God, and the sight of Moses will be the closest thing Pharaoh will ever come to see the God he is fighting.

    In this episode of thirst and testing at Rephidim, God promises that Moses will see God standing on the rock that will provide water when struck. However, the people will not see God, but only Moses, the one through whom God gives to Israel what Israel needs to live.

    Besides providence and people, places have also show and remind the people that God is with them. Later on, in chapters 25 – 31, the people build the Tabernacle. The architecture and layout, the items and the rituals instituted serve to remind the people of His Presence. And when they finally built the Temple during Solomon’s reign, it provided a constant reminder of His Presence. That’s why when the temple fell to the Babylonians later on, Israel asked, “Where is God now?” The good news is that about 540 years after their captivity and return, Jesus arrives on the scene and the question of ‘Is God good and is He with us?’ is finally and fully answered, by God Himself, in the flesh, through His Son, Jesus of Nazareth.

  • REFLECT

    While in the wilderness, Israel lived between slavery and freedom, between exile and home. The people needed assurance that the Lord was with them. Today, and for the last 2000 years God has been dwelling among His people - the Church. Through Christ’s incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension and His outpouring of the Holy Spirit, God entered forcefully into His fallen Creation to redeem it, and to reconstitute a new spiritual people around Jesus to continue his redemptive purposes in the world. Through Christ and His human body, God is with the world, but God also gives His spiritual Body, the Church as His continuing, loving presence in the world. That’s why the Apostle Paul could write in 1 Cor 3:16-17, “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.”

    In this season of Lent, how are you exercising your freedom and embodying God’s Presence? How are you keeping your heart and mind a holy place for God’s dwelling? How are you posturing and positioning your heart to hear the Voice of God for direction and purpose?

reading for: Thursday Night, 9 mARCH

Romans 5:1-11

Peace with God through Jesus Christ

  • READ

    Being at peace with God means that we, who were once his enemies because of Adam’s sin, now have God as friend and father. Now as his sons and daughters because of Jesus Christ, God is engaged in our life, not only watching us but also working with us. This has two immediate effects on us. First, we have God’s loving attention and concern. Our lives are in God’s active care. Second, we have hope. Our hope is such a great hope that we are inspired to boast not about ourselves but about the power of God at work in us.

    Speaking from his own personal journey of following Christ, and summarized in 2 Corinthians 11:23–33, the Apostle Paul can confidently write that suffering for the Gospel produces endurance, which produces character, which produces hope.

    The fruit of such Christ-centred suffering is quite different from the suffering we bring upon ourselves through the bad decisions we make, our own rebelliousness towards God or just suffering stemming from just living in a broken world and being among broken people.

    Suffering for the gospel prioritises God’s kingdom purposes above our own comforts and fulfilments. In a world of prosperity-blessings and consumeristic ‘Christianity’ this is often foreign to our ears and hard to swallow. The kind of suffering that Paul writes about is possible when we have grown secure in the love of God and we can rest our hearts because our eyes are fixed upon the cross of Christ as God’s ultimate expression of love for us and we are confident in who we are as His beloved children. And being assured of these, we can let go and be free from the desire of gifts from God, and shift our love and desire towards God Himself and for his Presence in our lives.

    The Christian’s journey begins and stands on the foundation of Christ’s death (v.6 – 9) and but it doesn’t stop there (v10). The Christian looks to Christ’s life as the one to emulate, the one life to imitate. The Christian also looks to the lives of those who have followed Christ faithfully throughout the ages and also to contemporary brothers and sisters around to continue in the grace given by God, persevering in faith and waiting for the great day of the Lord’s return.

  • REFLECT

    Where do you find your eyes looking to? Are they constantly on Christ? In this Lent season, examine the suffering and challenges you face. Bring them before God and ask the Holy Spirit for strength and grace, and for Him to lead you closer to Christ.

reading for: Friday Night, 10 MARCH

Psalm 95

Trusting in A Great and Powerful God with Authentic Hearts

  • READ

    Psalm 95 is the first of 6 praise songs (Psalm 95 – 100) that build towards a climax of the full expression of adoration and worship of God. Beginning with a declaration of God’s greatness, the first half (v.1-7) invites the faithful worshipping community of Israel to worship God in spirit and truth. In the second half (v.8-11) the community is warned about worshipping with hardened hearts and the consequences of inauthentic worship.

    Verses 1–2 comprise the invitation to worship and praise. The focus here is that God is to be approached by his people in adoration. Verse 3 establishes God as political ruler, “a great King above all gods.” Verse 4 reaffirms God’s identity as sovereign ‘Sustainer’ who holds “the depths of the earth” and is “the heights of the mountains.” Verse 5 reaffirms God’s role as Creator. The seas belong to God, and the dry land was formed by God’s hand. Verses 6–7 repeat the call to worship in light of God’s activity among humans and in the world.  

    Then the tone of the psalm changes dramatically. Verses 7–11 are a stern warning that, even in this moment of worship and adoration, worshippers must never forget what their ancestors did. While God was leading them out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land, they had to continually trust and follow God through the wilderness. But their hearts were hardened and we read about a history of disobedience, strife, defiance, neglect, rebellion, and transgression. The struggles and failings of that faithless generation became a milestone for the worshipping community of every subsequent generation to worship in spirit and truth and with soft and real hearts before God. There was to be no hidden deceit, there was to be no godless intentions, there was to be purity of heart and mind.

  • REFLECT

    Is your heart turned towards your past? Do you long and pine for the ‘good old days’? Or are you embittered, ashamed, angered or made fearful by past circumstances and brokenness? Bring them before the Lord in prayer and fasting. Don’t let anything create a barrier and an obstacle of your true and whole-hearted worship. Confide in a trusted spiritual friend and journey as spiritual companions together through this Lent season, upholding one another in prayer.

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