Asa was a very smart ruler. He knew if temptations existed, people would cave. So he removed the elements of temptation to bow to anyone or anything other that the true God of Israel. There are so many distractions in this world, things that steal our focus and tempt us…
Asa gave a kingly command to the people: seek the LORD God! Have you ever played hide and seek? To seek was to pursue. It was active. That’s what the people of Judah were instructed to do—activity seek and follow the LORD of their ancestors. It takes effort to do…
HYMN DAY! “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” by George Duffield, Jr. This one ought to get your adrenaline flowing! 1 Stand up, stand up for Jesus ye soldiers of the cross; lift high his royal banner, it must not suffer loss: from vict’ry unto vict’ry his army he shall…
When Asa inherited the kingship of Judah, he inherited a mess. The Israelites tended to follow a pattern of rebellion, uncomfortable consequences, repentance, and a time of close relationship with Yahweh. Asa stepped into leadership during a rebellious time, but he refused to remain there. He immediately took steps to…
Peace… That’s something we all want, but it’s a little hard to come by, isn’t it? We often think of peace as an absence of conflict—residing in a bubble of safety and calm. That kind of peace is actually rare in any time period, because we humans seem to have…
Look at the response of townspeople to the Samaritan woman’s invitation. They knew this woman. They knew how she’d lived, the wrong things she’d done, the shame she carried. In the past she’d skulked around, evading attention. But no more! Now they saw her excited and eager to share. What…
The Bible doesn’t tell us if the Samaritan woman made a faith commitment that day at the well, but we do we know she was impacted. We know because she’d come for water, but she left her jar behind. Her original task was abandoned; something more pressing stole her focus.…
HYMN DAY! “Springs of Living Water” by John W. Peterson isn’t an “old” hymn—I think it was written somewhere around 1950—but it’s a good one! I thirsted in the barren land of sin and shame, And nothing satisfying there I found; But to the blessed cross of Christ one day…
In yesterday’s Scripture, because Jesus saw the Samaritan woman’s need for salvation, He offered her living water. Living water can be running water, such as a stream, river, or spring; or it could refer to God, who is the fountain of living water (see Jer. 2:13). Based on this woman’s…
Jesus met a Samaritan woman at what was called Jacob’s well. He met her at midday, when the temperatures were uncomfortably hot and an unlikely time for women to draw water. But this woman wasn’t like other women in the village. Because of her lifestyle she was a social outcast.…
