Day 216: Tell Everyone!

John 4:27-42; 1 Chronicles 16:8-43; Zechariah 5

The story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman is so powerful. Jesus uses this opportunity to talk about spreading the message of eternal life. He tells the disciples that they will be sustained by obedience to God. He says that they may think they shouldn't be bold to share the gospel with people right away, to wait until the perfect time, but Jesus says that now is the perfect time. Then he tells them that not all of them will be the one to see people lead to faith in Christ, that some will simply plant the message in someone's mind and later, another person will see that fruit sprout in their heart and they actually accept it. The whole point of this is that now is the time to obey God and be messengers of Christ. Not later, not when we feel ready, right now. And whether the people we talk to about salvation accept Jesus and get saved or not isn't our job to determine, because some of us are destined to simply share the message and others will help them in accepting it.

The Samaritans first put their faith in Jesus because of the testimony of what the woman said. That's so awesome that because of her faith and her sharing, others were saved. But they didn't just stop there. They actually investigated Jesus to see what he had to say and they then believed in him because of him. We need to do the same. If we believe in Jesus simply because that's what our pastor says or because we've just always gone to church, then it is time to open our bibles and hear what Jesus actually has to say about himself. If you've never done that, I challenge you to; it will change your life.

In David's song of praise, over and over again it says to "tell everyone" or that "every nation" or "everyone on this earth" should sing or shout. This ties right into what we read in John about now being the time to share the gospel: who needs it now? Everyone. The point of this song of praise was to worship God, and part of that worship is telling every nation on earth about what God has done. It is simply obedience and an act of worship to share our faith with others.

Wow, the vision of the scroll is Zechariah is intimidating. I'm not perfect so of course I've lied and stolen before. It would be crazy to say that we haven't done those two "little" things. But here, the scroll is intended to put a curse on everyone who does those two things in the Lord's name. So everyone who lies or steals for the sake of the gospel will be cursed. To me, this sounds like false prophets or people who claim to be Christians, claim to want to help people, but change the message to suit themselves or their followers and take from people what rightfully belongs to God. God will have his justice on those people.