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            Jesus went to Jerusalem for the feast of the Jews. When He arrived he went to this pool that had a bunch of sick people laying near it. These sick people believed that if they would just go into the water when it was stirred up, they would be supernaturally healed. Amongst them was a man who had been there for 38 years! For 38 years he lay there waiting to be healed. Jesus saw him and asked if he wanted to be made well. The man replied that he had no one to help him into the water and any time he got close to it others would trample over him making it impossible for him to get into the water to receive healing. To imagine this man was there for 38 years trying to get into the water and not a single person tried to help him, they would instead trample over him. Not that the water would have healed him but the fact that they all believed the water would heal yet not a single person tried to help him get healed. The selfishness in that is sad. Had someone tried to help him sooner he would have seen that the water was merely water and he could have left and lived his life the best he could during those 38 years without lying there in hopes to get into the water for those years instead. There wasn’t any love being shown to this man until he saw Jesus. Jesus saw Him and showed Him love and healed him so he could move on and be freed.

            Jesus healed him and told him to pick up his bed and walk. The interesting thing in this was this day was the Sabbath, one wasn’t supposed to pick up beds or anything like that and move it on the Sabbath, there also wasn’t supposed to be any healings done on this day either. They cared more about traditions then they did about God’s love for His people. Jesus knew they were holding onto traditions and that could have been why he told the man to pick up his bed and walk. It wasn’t the act of the man being healed that seemed to catch the Jews attention, it was him picking up his bed that made them react. One has to wander, if he didn’t pick up his bed what would they have done instead? The Jews told him he wasn’t to pick up his bed on the Sabbath, not even caring that he was just supernaturally healed. They asked why he picked up his bed on the Sabbath and when he told them that the man who healed him told him to, which mad them want to know who this man was. However, the man didn’t know, Jesus had left by this point and didn’t tell him His name.

            After, Jesus found the man in the temple and told him to sin no more, to prevent a worse thing coming upon him. Sin causes us to sew bad seeds, when bad seed are sewn that is what will be reaped. Jesus didn’t want this man to endure anymore bad so He told him to sin no more so that the man wouldn’t be in the position to sew any bad seeds into his new life. The man departed and told the Jews that is was Jesus who had made him well and for this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, they sought to kill Him because He had healed on the Sabbath. They cared more about traditions, law and religion then they did seeing the move of God amongst them. We need to be careful of this.

            We need to make sure we don’t grow into law or religion with our comfort zones. Jesus pushed the boundaries to them which made them uncomfortable. Comfort zones were made to be broken. If we want to allow God to move through us freely, the comfort zones have to go. God wants to see all of His children come together to worship Him, and all of His children are so different. We have to embrace the uncomfortable to see His kingdom grow, to reach those who aren’t like us but need Him and who He wants to come home. The comfort zones need to be broken to see Gods body come together. The church, the body of Christ is going to be changing to see all of Gods lost come home, we have to not only be ok with that but we need to welcome it. To welcome it we have to say goodbye to religion and dive deep into relationship with Jesus.

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            The girl told Jesus that she wanted some of this water, so that she wouldn’t have to come back to the well to get water anymore. Jesus responded by telling her to go and get her husband to which she responded that she didn’t have one (even though she was married five times and currently in a relationship with someone else).

            Jesus knew that she answered honestly when she said that she had no husband because He knew she wasn’t married to the man she was currently with. Jesus said that He knew she had been married five times and the man she was with wasn’t her husband and she said for Him to know this He must be a prophet. She continued to say that her fathers worshiped on that mountain and the Jews say that one ought to worship in Jerusalem. Where one should worship was a debated topic between the Samaritans and the Jews. Yet Jesus didn’t argue with her on this or debate her. Debating can turn someone away and she needed to be softened in the heart, not hardened. It’s one thing to have an intellectual conversation with someone who is born again and try to learn from each other. But debating with someone who hasn’t yet seen His truth isn’t a good thing and often does more harm than good.

            Jesus confirmed what she and others would soon know the meaning of. In those days they thought they had to go to a certain place to worship God and be in His presence. But the hour was soon coming when that would change, because of Jesus and His Holy Spirit we can worship God wherever we are, we aren’t confined to set apart places. Of coarse we can worship God at church, but we should worship Him daily at home, at work, wherever we are.

            When we worship God we worship Him in the Spirit. We can do this through singing or through praying in tongues. We can do it out loud or silently, the point is it’s an internal thing done through the Spirit. When we sing worship song to the Lord we aren’t just reciting words to a melody, we are having our Spirit cry out to the Lord to love on Him and worship Him.

            The women said that she knew a Messiah was to come and when He comes He will tell them all things. Jesus then revealed to her, this adulteress Samaritan, that He was Him! Jesus revealed who He was to this sinner, He came to save the sinners not the righteous. At this moments His disciples showed up and they were surprised that Jesus was talking to this woman, yet none of them asked Him about it. When we see something happens that is surprising to us or out of the normal, ask Jesus about it, He wants to teach us. When we seek Him for answers by asking Him questions, He will answer! Seek and you will find.

            The disciples then tried to get Jesus to eat, however He said that He had food which they didn’t know about. They began to ask one another if they had given Him food. Jesus said that His food was to do the will of Him who sent Him and to finish His work. Jesus than began to teach on Gods government of seed, harvest and reap. Jesus said that the fields are ready for harvest and he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life. He who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together for one sows and another reaps and many will reap what they haven’t labored by entering into another’s labor. When we share the word of God we are sewing a seed, that seed than gets watered and nurtured and will at some point be ready for harvest. However, bad seeds can be sewn too for there is life and death in the power of the tongue. What we say sews seeds, whether good or bad. When we complain we sew seeds that are bad and will produce a bad harvest. However, when we repent we pull those seeds up and can replace them with the word of God to produce a good harvest.

            Often times someone will sew a seed and later someone else will be used to lead that person the Christ, they didn’t plant the original seed but the seed caused them to seek Jesus and choose to get led to Him. When we do the will of God we are feeding our Spirit man.

            When Jesus then got to Samaria the Samaritans believed in Him already because the woman at the well went and told them what they had talked about. She told them that He knew all the things that she had done and that sparked there attention. God can used signs and wonders to get peoples attention, whether it be through a word of knowledge or through a physical healing. Because these people believed they wanted Jesus to stay with them so He stayed there two days and many more believed because of His own word. They believed then not because of what the woman had said, though that sewed the seed. They believed once they met Him and heard His word from Him.

            Jesus then departed there and went to Galilee. It is stated that Jesus said testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. I have found this to be true from what I have witnessed, there can be some who stay in their hometown and are still honored as a prophet of God but I feel like that is the exception. For many they leave and go elsewhere, where people don’t know about them and who they were before they came to Christ because that can hinder them taking them serious. It can be hard for them to accept the change and the new creation in Christ because of the idea of who they knew them as before. God knows where we can serve him best and that’s why we should always seek God on where does He want us to live and be used to further His kingdom.

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            Jesus came to Cana of Galilee (where He had turned the water into wine) and there was a nobleman whose son was sick. When the nobleman (ruler) heard that Jesus was there he went to Him and asked Him to heal his son who was about to die. Jesus replied, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.” The nobleman continued to plead that Jesus would go and heal his son to which Jesus replied, “Go your way; your son lives.” On this the nobleman chose to believe and went his way headed back home. When he was greeted by his servants the next day as he arrived back they told him that his son indeed lives. He asked when his son had gotten better and they told him that the fever left him on the seventh hour the day before, which was the exact hour that Jesus told him, “your son lives.” Jesus healed his son without even having to be there. There is no limits to what Jesus can do, if we would just believe in Him and stop putting faith in doubt or unbelief. You can’t have faith in doubt and Jesus at the same time, its one or the other.

            In addition to this weeks bible study we wanted to share a testimony. A woman was confined to a wheelchair and God healed her this week. She had severe arthritis in her body and wasn’t able to walk because of the pain. She was prayed for and God supernaturally healed her instantly, she got up and began to walk freely without any pain and continued to walk all day without any pain at all and didn’t have a need for her wheelchair anymore. This outpouring of the Holy Spirit is going to move more freely than we have ever seen, seeing healings like this will be the new normal to those who believe. The body of Christ is in a revival that will stay, it will be a habitation like we have never seen. We just need to belief and have faith in Jesus and allow Him to move freely in us.