PRAYER ROOMS
- 9am – Tuesday, online only
- noon – Tuesday, for Sanctuary leaders
- 1/31/24 – Prayer Learning Lab: How to hear God’s Voice (register on link for headcount)
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” - John 4:27-38
It wasn’t that Jesus was not hungry for food. The journey from Jerusalem to Sychar was thirty miles. The average adult male burns 500 calories an hour while hiking. That means Jesus had just burned 5,000 calories. Of course he was hungry. His disciples were acutely aware of the need for food. They leave him at the well to go to the village to find food. When they return, the first thing they do is urge him to eat something.
Jesus’ response is striking. “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” The confused disciples wonder where Jesus’ secret stash of food is. But they soon discover that Jesus is not referring to physical food. In the wilderness, the Devil tries to convince Jesus to eat something. He replies that “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus realizes that he is nourished just as much by God’s voice as he is by food.
In like fashion here, Jesus points out a profound spiritual principle to us. We may think what we need most is food – but humans can survive for hours, days, even weeks without it. What we cannot survive without is purpose. Jesus understands his ultimate purpose. His food is to do the will of the one who sent him and to finish his work. What was this work? In this instance, we see that it is searching for a lost and lonely Samaritan woman, who has been hungry for love, for security, for affection – but has been looking for it in all the wrong places. Six men she has been with. When Jesus, the seventh and final man, finds her, her long search is finished. She has been found. And Jesus is nourished by bringing her home into a relationship with Himself.
As it turns out, our God is a hungry God. Our hunger has to do with our body and its need for nourishment, but God hungers for lost people. He hungers for lost souls. He hungers for this woman. And for her village. He hungers for you and for me. So powerful is his burning love for lost people that Jesus, tired and hungry as he was, spends his waning energy pursuing this Samaritan woman and her village. When you think of God, do you think of a hungry God? Who is not satisfied until he finds his lost children?
God is inviting us into his hunger for lost people. All four gospels contain the story of the feeding of the 5000. God invites the disciples to join his longing for lost people. The disciples want to send the crowds away to find food to eat. Jesus turns to his disciples…and to us…and says “you give them something to eat.” Our natural response, like the disciples, is “Lord, there won’t be enough left for me.” But when we participate in God’s hunger for lost people, we discover there is plenty of food for us. The food is in the harvest. We are fed when we “lift up our eyes and look at the fields.” In John 4, Jesus and his disciples ate very well for the next two days in Sychar, both spiritually and literally.
As we fast and pray this month, we want to focus our prayers and attention on people who are lost and need Jesus, asking for God to make our hearts like his…hungry for them to come home. As you deny yourself food in this season, pray that God will attune you to his purpose – and yours. Jesus’ food is to do the will of the one who sent him and finish his work. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. May this be our purpose as well.
Prayer & Reflection:
- Pray for 3 people in your life who do not know Jesus. That God will lead them home.
- Pray for God to invade your heart with his own hunger, with his burning love for lost people. You don’t need to produce this hunger in yourself – but you do need to open your heart to the One whose heart burns, whose stomach pangs, whose eyes weep – for those who wander from Him.
- Pray for God to use you to reach these 3.
- Ask God if there is a specific assignment for you this week regarding your 3.
- Pray for the church of God to be invaded by God’s burning love and hunger for lost people.
- Pray that God will release a season of bold and humble witness and evangelism in the church – and that many lost people will come to faith this year.
In Our Time 