In a time when man-made systems are crumbling, and things around are falling apart;
in a day when proffered solutions are merely illusions, we need a vision of God's Reality.

Our hope, is to cut through the clutter and the accretions which have grown up around us,
and share the glimpses of that which has startled our own lives to awareness –
a quickening shock which has been to us Real and Life-giving.


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Life… Revealed!
By Paul Ravenhill

In John 4 we have two days of interruption.

What a two days were those!
For two days the divine mission to Israel was set aside,
for two days the burden of Israel’s prophets, and the fulfillment of their prophecies, was held in abeyance and a new mission was brought to light.

The Grace, the Mercy and the Truth of the Son of God were not for Israel in those days, but for an alien people outside the scope of the promises.

In those days revelation was given to Samaria. A people without the history and the knowledge of which Israel boasted, was given a special unveiling which Israel was incapable of receiving.

In those two days God reached beyond the racial and cultural divide, beyond the division of religion and of sin, and unveiled a realm where the Spirit alone was important. In those two days, in the outworking of God’s purpose, there was revealed: truth which was not local in its scope, pertaining to a particular nation or city, truth not found in the outward righteousness of ceremonial observances.

Jesus’ words to the woman at the well were the essence of simplicity and directness: ‘there is Living Water...a Gift.’

With what infinite compassion He showed her, ‘That water of yours will give way to thirst…the water I give is Life within – ever-springing’...

Think how this woman, an alien to Israel and the promises of the chosen people, ignorant of the Way, stained with a life of sin, and without hope, grasped what was hidden to Israel; and SAW the Life, and the Grace, and the Mercy.

Think how the instant capture of the Truth led her back into town and ushered in two days in which the heavens were opened upon Samaria, and Grace was outpoured.

Think how for two days Jesus laid aside his mission to His own people and gave Himself wholly to those forgotten ones.

Today in our society, just as in Israel then, the God-given revelation has become choked with all sorts of human conditioning. We have lost the Living Essence, and are left to follow vainly empty forms, seeking light from extinguished lamps.

To the woman Jesus said, “ The hour cometh, and NOW is.” For us also, in our day, it is the hour; the time when God desires to reveal again to those who thirst Waters which Satisfy Forever.

“The hour” of His promise, His visitation –
how we allow Time to steal it from us…
how hard it is for us to say, “Now”…
how hard to believe for an answer Now.

God interrupted her world with a “Now”, and so with us,
we need the interruption of God’s NOW in our living.

He would say to us today, that Now as we seek Him, He will come to us also in a new-born revelation of the limitlessness of Life as it is poured forth from Him.

Beyond all we know, beyond all we have rested upon, there awaits us God’s Life flowing - Fresh and Forever.

Copyright © Paul Ravenhill 2013 - http://www.ravenhill.org/