Where do I Worship? On this Mountain or in Jerusalem!

Scripture demands that we “work out our salvation in fear and in trembling…” Compounded to this we are instructed to “rightly divide the word of truth.” We are also warned about “false teachings and the doctrines of men and the doctrines of devils.” Let us put all the above into context as we examine a conversation that takes place between Jesus and the woman of Samaria. They met at Jacob’s Well, where Jesus was waiting for His disciples to return from the city with food they had gone to purchase. While He was waiting this woman comes to draw water from the well when Jesus asks her for some water to drink. This gets the conversation going. The source of living water is asking her for water to drink!

Acts 7:48-50 “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me,’ says the Lord. ‘Or where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all things?’”

We need to realize that Jesus is patiently waiting to talk to us. He has done so much to show His concern and love for us as human beings. He waits patiently to engage in a conversation with us. But let us examine this conversation. Jesus asks her for some water and immediately she responds with the fact that He is a Jew, and she a Samaritan, and they had no dealing with each other. Instead of being hospitable and helpful in trying to bridge the gap that already existed, she chooses to speak about an historical conflict that existed between their races. There was no problem between Jesus and her, but she refers to an ancestral problem that involved their culture. She chose to hold on to the past instead of allowing God to mold her future. Many of us also tend to do this in living out our lives. Jesus invites her to participate in a divine understanding of what was happening, but she was content to remain on a natural plain of ignorance.

Jesus then tells her that if she had known who she was speaking to, she would have asked Him instead for living water to drink. And once again instead of listening carefully to Jesus, she tends to become logical about what He says. “You don’t have a container to draw from this well, how then will you be able to give me to drink.” Instead of allowing the Lord to pick her up, she tries to bring God down to her level. God is not restricted to our logic; He is above it and beyond it and the sooner we get the message the sooner we would be on the path to everlasting life. After Jesus reveals to her the life that she was living and the fact that the man she was living with at that time was not even her husband, she realizes that He was a prophet.

Then she refers to the fact that her ancestors worshipped on that mountain in Samaria while the Jews worshipped in Jerusalem. Jesus then changes the narrative from a geographical position to an attitude of the heart. This is exactly what Jesus says: “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we [the Jews] worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.” [John 4:22-23]. Presently millions of people are more taken by the place they worship in than the God they ought to worship. Jesus is making it abundantly clear that the place is not relevant, the attitude of our heart is! Christians, stay focused, stay on track, and endure the Gospel of Jesus Christ because His coming is imminent.