The Samaritan Woman. Part 2

The Samaritan Woman. Part 2

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she ask Him.

For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

John 4:9

I have a great circle of girlfriends. We laugh and cry together. We share each other’s burdens, without judgement of each other. I know I am blessed with a circle that most women long for. I trust some with everything and others I trust with some. The things I share with some, I don’t share with all and over the years the level of confidentiality has shifted and changed. A few years ago a friend of mine confessed sin from her past. I don’t want to bring the specific sin into the blog, because I have learned, that all sin is sin. In the eyes of our Savior, He died for sin, all of them, and each stripe he took was no different, therefore no sin is less or greater.

The sin she confessed was shocking to me. It was not one that I could imagine her going through and being uncomfortable with the confession, I immediately felt I, too, needed to share something personal in my life. I felt silly as soon as the words were out of my mouth and sat unknowing what to say next. She really didn’t need me to say anything, as she told me the circumstances surrounding it. When her story was finished, she ask me if I thought less of her. No, I told her. I did however feel extreme grief for my friend and what she had been through, the mask she wore to hide the shame of a sin, long forgiven by our Savior, and that we live in a society where followers of Christ have to wonder if other Followers will think less of them.

Now many Samaritans from the town believed in Him because of what the woman said when she testified,

“He told me everything I ever did.”

John 4:39

After I gave my life to Christ, I realized that my shame had become my testimony. I still feel shame when I remember an event from my past or when a consequence from my past rears its ugliness. Being forgiven doesn’t mean we forget the sin, it means God does. It also doesn’t mean that the enemy won’t try to hurt us with shame long forgiven. I wish that we all could as easily remove our mask as the Samaritan Woman did. After meeting the Savior, she showed no more shame, she went to the people, she had just been hiding from, and not only told them about meeting the Messiah, but she testified, that He told her everything she had ever done.... In other words, she was no longer ashamed, because the promised Messiah had offered her eternal life.

For it is contained in scripture:

Look! I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and

  the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame!

1 Peter 2:6

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people

For His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out

of the darkness.

1 Peter 2:9

A chosen race; we are chosen by God into a royal priesthood. Jesus called us out of the darkness and into the light so that when we believe in Him, we can never be put to shame. That is not to say that this world will not try to shame us. The enemy will fight us and try to make us feel less than we are. The enemy wants us to hold onto shame because he knows he can’t have us. We have a ticket to Heaven and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want us to share the Good News because he wants to take as many as he can with him to eternal Hell. Don’t listen to the lie of the enemy. As Christ followers, we don’t have to be ashamed.

I cannot tell you how many times I have shared a shameful story only to see relief as someone shared their painful story.  Your pain may be exactly what a lost person needs to see in order to find their way out of the darkness. The lost need to see us as who we are; sinners forgiven by grace. When all we show is a mask of perfection to the lost, they are too ashamed to set free the shame that binds them to the darkness. It’s not their sin, that binds them, because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, it is their shame, which prevents them from accepting the path of forgiveness.

Take off your mask! Testify about how God saved you and brought you out of the shame you once had. Find a group of friends that you can laugh with until your belly hurts and cry with until no more tears will fall.

Father, I thank you for my girlfriends. All of them! I have been blessed with girlfriends in each walk of my life and I thank you for that. I life up the person reading this right now that wears a mask to hide the truth. Put someone in their life, right now, to help unmask the shame. Amen.