Intersect: If you only knew

by Dr. Garnett Reid, Free Will Baptist Bible College

Squash. I couldn’t stand to look at it, much less eat it when I was a kid. “If you only knew what you’re missing,” my mother would tell me, shaking her head as she savored each bite of the nasty stuff.

When Jesus made a point to seek a woman by Jacob’s well in Samaria (John 4), he told her something similar. “If you only knew who I am and what I’m offering you,” he assured her, “you would have asked me first thing for the amazing gift I can give you” (verse 10).

My thoughts run along the same lines today when people I try to reach with the gospel turn down Jesus’ offer. “If you only knew what you could have if you’d just believe,” I think to myself.

Consider the implications of what the Lord was saying to this woman.

If you only knew . . . that none of us differs in our need.

“We shouldn’t be having this conversation,” she told Jesus. After all, Samaritans and Jews didn’t get along. Yet what was true then holds today. Though our world divides itself into every possible faction, ultimately we all belong to one group. “All have sinned,” the Scripture asserts; “there is no difference.”

If you only knew . . . that your life could be so much better.

Like so many people today, this Samaritan had suffered because of a string of bad choices and bad relationships. Yet the Lord offers healing and wholeness to all those buried under the rubble of collapsed hopes.

If you only knew . . . that I am who I claim to be.

She knew about the Messiah. Evidently she had told herself there would be answers when he came—and suddenly, she met Him face to face! If Jesus is the Christ, why aren’t we telling that to the people we meet?

If you only knew . . . that I could give you everything you’ve ever really wanted.

“Living water,” Jesus calls it—total satisfaction. As people around us spend their lives barely treading water in the face of overwhelming tides that will eventually wear them down, only a relationship with Him will keep us above the surf and give purpose to living.

If you only knew . . . that God is looking for you.

“The Lord is looking for people like you,” Jesus told her. If He is looking, we should be, too. Start with just one person, that special person close by, that friend you’ve known all these years who needs the Lord. Be like this woman who, once she knew Jesus, told her friends, “Come and meet this man!”

You know, I love squash now—any way you prepare it. So do my kids after we told them over and over, “If you only knew . . . ”

INTERSECT (Where the Bible Meets Life) is a regular column of ONE Magazine featuring Dr. Garnett Reid, a member of the Bible faculty at Free Will Baptist Bible College.