Circuit Rider Letter
September 2010
by Pastor John DiGiamberardino

Throughout the summer we have been thinking about what it means to be a Christ Follower. In John 4 we read about a Samaritan woman who has an encounter with Jesus. Just like the woman at the well, to truly be a Christ follower we must come to terms with our desperate need for God. We must deal with our propensity to live a life of duplicity and sin, and deal with our ‘stuff’. The good news is that God is a God of broken people who doesn’t just forgive but transforms! Have you come to that place where you realized that you really need God in your life? Has your relationship with Christ been just about forgiveness of has it transformed your brokenness?

As we read John 4 we realize that just as there is a powerful physical thirst for water, there is equally a powerful spiritual thirst for living water in which only God can fill. The problem comes when you try to fill that spiritual thirst with temporary things instead of Jesus Christ. Not only is it unsatisfying to build life around the temporary things of this world but it also leads to disheartening exhaustion and grief.

Before the woman at the well could fully receive the living water Jesus offered, she had to come to grips with the truth about her compromising lifestyle. When God’s truth engages your life, you too will see the “shadow self” in you that continues to push you to do things you know are wrong and not of God. External religious rules will not keep you from sinning. Power only comes through the hard spiritual work of surrender and dependence upon God, one day at a time. Are you letting God’s truth engage your life every day? Do you acknowledge that you have a “shadow self?” How do you keep it in check?

Following Jesus leads to trusting only in him and his ways. Ultimately, you only have an audience of one in which you must live and that audience is God. The method the woman at the well dealt with her ‘shadow self’ was to take her energy and work for God. She took her misdirected and misaligned relationship addictions and channeled it to purposeful actions of service and sacrifice, witnessing to her friends and neighbors about Jesus. Who is your audience? Is it God and God alone? How could you transfer your energies to serving the Lord?

God is a God who heals our brokenness. Have you let Him not only forgive you but heal you, transform you? Like the woman at the well let God fill your cup.

See You In Worship!

Pastor John

Fill My Cup, Lord
Words and Music by Richard Blanshard

Like the woman at the well I was seeking
For things that could not satisfy;
And then I heard my Savior speaking:
"Draw from my well that never shall run dry".

CHORUS
Fill my cup Lord, I lift it up, Lord!
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul;
Bread of heaven, Feed me till I want no more--
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole!

There are millions in this world who are craving
The pleasures earthly things afford;
But none can match the wondrous treasure
That I find in Jesus Christ my Lord.

So, my brother, if the things this world gave you
Leave hungers that won't pass away,
My blessed Lord will come and save you,
If you kneel to Him and humbly pray: