Guilt

Joh 4:11 The woman said to him, Sir, you have no vessel and the fountain is deep; from where will you get the living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the fountain and took the water of it himself, with his children and his cattle? 13 Jesus said to her, Everyone who takes this water will be in need of it again: 14 But whoever takes the water I give him will never be in need of drink again; for the water I give him will become in him a fountain of eternal life.

One of the most awesome and chilling statements in the English lan­guage is that which comes from the foreman of a jury when he or she stands to say, "We find the defendant guilty!"

What is "guilt"? It is both a fact and a feeling. The dictionary says that guilt is "the fact or state of having done wrong." It is also "a feeling of being to blame." When the fact of guilt is proved in a court of law and the guilty person pays his or her debt to society for the wrong done, then in the sight of the law that person is no longer guilty. Payment or restitution has been made, and for all practical purposes the "fact of guilt" is gone.

But the feeling of guilt isn't always so easily resolved. Sometimes it attaches itself to us like a malignancy. It distorts our emotions; it affects our attitudes; it sours our relationships with others.

Sometimes it can drive a per­son to self-destruction. Then there are some who compensate for these feel­ings of guilt in other ways. They withdraw; they build fences around themselves, barriers that they allow no one to penetrate. And they live out their lives in loneliness and rejection.

Joh 4:19 The woman said to him, Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers gave worship on this mountain, but you Jews say that the right place for worship is in Jerusalem. 21 Jesus said to her, Woman, take my word for this; the time is coming when you will not give worship to the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You give worship, but without knowledge of what you are worshipping: we give worship to what we have knowledge of: for salvation comes from the Jews. 23 But the time is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will give worship to the Father in the true way of the spirit, for these are the worshippers desired by the Father. 24 God is Spirit: then let his worshippers give him worship in the true way of the spirit.

Ø How much was said after Jesus revealed himself to the woman we do not know.

Somewhere after this point the miracle of salvation took place. The woman proved her newfound faith by her compelling desire to go and tell someone.

Ø She, like every other person, had to discover the reality of the Lord_, Jesus for herse4f; thus the people of Sychar came to see and hear.

Perhaps the Samaritan woman became the "resident missionary" of Sychar. God took an individual who was cursed by guilt and led her through the dark tunnel of her guilt into the light of eternal life.

He is still doing that today.