February 27th — IMPOVERISHED MINISTRY OF JESUS
February 27th.IMPOVERISHED MINISTRY OF JESUS
"From whence then hast Thou that living water?" John 4:11
"The wel is deep" - and a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! Think of the depths of human nature, of human life, think of the depths of the "wel s" in you. Have you been impoverishing the ministry of Jesus so that He can not do anything? Suppose there is a wel of fathomless trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says - "Let not your heart be troubled"; and you shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the wel is deep; You cannot draw up quietness and comfort out of it." No, He wil bring them down from above. Jesus does not bring anything up from the wel s of human nature. We limit the Holy One of Israel by remembering what we have al owed Him to do for us in the past, and by saying, "Of course I cannot expect God to do this thing." The thing that taxes almightiness is the very thing which we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He wil do. We impoverish His ministry the moment we forget He is Almighty; the impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We wil come to Jesus as Comforter or as Sympathizer, but we wil not come to Him as Almighty.
The reason some of us are such poor specimens of Christianity is because we have no Almighty Christ. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying - "Of course He cannot do any thing," and we struggle down to the deeps and try to get the water for ourselves. Beware of the satisfaction of sinking back and saying - "It can't be done"; you know it can be done if you look to Jesus. The wel of your incompleteness is deep, but make the effort and look away to Him.