What do you do when you're faced with the truth about yourself?

(**heavily inspired by Rev. LaKeesha Walrond's 10/26 sermon**)

John 4:5-19, 39-42

So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^[1] )

Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."

"I have no husband," she replied.

Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."

Sometimes the hardest truth to see is the truth about ourselves. We are quick to point out the flaws of others, but how often do we sit back and really take a look at what we've packaged away inside? Christian culture often pulls us into a nasty cycle of deception, in which we go out of our ways to present ourselves as someone we're really not. That's obviously not the message of grace, and salvation by faith. The problem is that we start thinking to ourselves (sometimes unconsiously) things like: What would people at church/fellowship think if they knew that I abused the painkillers they gave me for my surgery? That I like to drink when depressed? or that I'm consumed with self-destructive thoughts? When thinking about others it's easy to take the high road, assuring yourself that you would not look at a christian friend differently who admits that they have a drinking problem, a gambling problem, or that they like to look at pornographic material. That's great in theory, but in practice is that really your reaction?

Given that, it's not surprising that we build walls around our sin. We'll open up about the sinful things we did before we became a christian. We'll share how we had a bad interaction with someone and wished that God would not bless them, or that we've been in a spiritual rut. While these are important, it's more important to be honest with yourself and especially with God.

When you are in a relationship with Jesus Christ it's important to realize that he already knows everything about you but he still loves you. Life is not about us, and what we can do for Jesus, but rather it's all about Jesus, and how his grace is sufficient. He does not expect perfection, but he does call us to be faithful, and it is throught that faithfulness that he can fulfill our needs, deliver us from our sinful secrets, and mold us into the person he created us to be.

What do you do when you're faced with the truth about yourself?

The Samaritan woman in the story changed the subject, rather than deal with the issue Jesus confronted her with. What about you? Are you sharing your testimony? What do you do when you're faced with the truth? Go tell somebody.